The court in the northern town of Arras heard how the woman tried to entice the men into her bed and began groping one of the workmen when he was bent over working.

“When you have done with the radiators, come to my bed,” the woman, identified only as I.D., told one of the two workers in October last year, according to La Voix du Nord newspaper.

When one plumber was bending over to do some work, the woman, who is in her late forties and said she was an alcoholic, approached him from behind and began caressing his back and other parts of his body.

He spurned her advances. She then closed the shutters of the apartment and began making ever more obscene propositions.

When the plumbers again declined, she smacked one of them across the ear before throwing them out of her home and refusing to let them take their plumbing equipment with them.

When the police came the next day to recover the tools, the accused again lashed out, this time hitting the caretaker of the building.

The woman told the court that she realised that “my behaviour was not normal that day with the workers”. She said that after the incident she had “fallen even deeper into alcoholism” but in recent months  had managed to stop drinking and was now training to be a care worker.

The court gave her a 12-month suspended prison sentence and ordered her to pay €1,000 in damages to the pair of plumbers.