Which non-Spanish Romance language is closer to Italian overall -- Portuguese, Romanian or French?

[gıulıoımpa]

if it was not for some gallicismes French grammar would be practically the same as italian.

the more occitan parts have even more resemblance.

[billErobreren]

French. I can see why some would consider Spanish and Italian to be closer than they truly are due to their phonetic but Italian is grammatically closer to French

[Smaug]

French, possibly, both in terms of grammar and vocabulary. As a native Romance speaker though, French stands out from a pure phonological point of view. It is relatively easy for me to understand most languages and dialects both from Iberia and Italy if they are spoken slowly, however for French it is a little bit harder. As for Romance, for me it is the most alien Romance language, probably because they have Daco-Thracian substratum which differs from the Celtic substratum shared by the West Romance languages.

[Iltirbas]

French is overall noticeably closer to (standard) Italian than Spanish is, the thread's question is not really up for debate.