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Glance around France: New plane routes from Bordeaux and a forest fire blazes near Paris

Our round-up of the stories from around France on Thursday include a low cost airline announcing new routes from Bordeaux airport, a forest fire south of Paris and a good year for wine in the Gard.

Published: 11 October 2018 17:48 CEST
Glance around France: New plane routes from Bordeaux and a forest fire blazes near Paris
Photo: AFP
Fire destroys 80 hectares of forest south of Paris 
 
It isn't only the south of France that has to watch out for forest fires. 
 
A blaze which broke out in Senart forest in Essonne, the department directly south of Paris, has ravaged nearly 80 hectares of forest. 
 
Fires of this scale are extremely rare for the ile-de-France region, with 125 firefighters and 24 trucks specially equipped to deal with forest fires, arriving to put out the blaze. 
 
Luckily no people were hurt and no property was damaged. 
 
The fire was under control but not completely extinguished on Thursday. 
 
 
 

Low cost Spanish airline to launch three new routes from Bordeaux
 
Low cost Spanish airline Volotea is set to open three new routes from Bordeaux in 2019.
 
Planes on the new routes will fly between the south western French city and Vienna in Austria, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and Pula in Croatia.
 
The airline will eventually offer a weekly flight to Lanzarote, two flights a week to Vienna one weekly flight to Pula.
 

 
Good year for wine in the Gard
 
The 2018 grape harvest has just wrapped up in the Gard department of southern France, with winemakers already hailing this year's crop as a high quality one. 
 
This year's harvest resulted in 3.3 million hectolitres compared to last year's 2.6 million hectolitres, which was the lowest level since 1945. 
 
Producers have said the wines from the first harvested grapes are mostly well balanced, fruity and very promising in terms of quality for white, rose and red varieties.
 
This year's first wines will land on tables at the end of October
 

 
Paris tops rankings for scooter accidents
 
The rising trend for using scooters is proving perilous… in Paris, at least.
 
It seems scooter users are becoming increasingly bold, venturing from the safety of the pavements and onto the roads in order to save time on their journeys and the fact that many of them are now electric means they are going faster.  
 
According to new road safety data, this has seen a 23 percent increase in the number of people wounded or killed on the streets of the French capital in just one year. 
 
That meant that in 2017, 284 people were wounded and five were killed on scooters and rollerblades compared to 231 wounded and 6 killed in the previous year. 
 

 
Regional train line set to close for weeks after stormy weather in the south
 
There are certainly going to be some unhappy commuters in the south of France this month. 
 
No trains will be running on the regional TER line between Marseille and Miramas in the south of France until October 20th due to the rockfalls and landslides seen at the beginning of the week between Estaque and Niolon in the south eastern Bouches-du-Rhône department. 
 

 
Meanwhile, this is what happened in Corsica…
 
82,000 homes experience power cut in Corsica
 
A whopping 82,000 homes in Corsica were affected by a power cut during the storms which hit the island on Wednesday. 
 
The power cut last just 20 minutes but affected one quarter of the island's residents, according to energy supplier EDF. 
 
Corsica had been placed on orange alert — the second highest warning — for storms on Wednesday and, according to EDF, was hit by “more than 500 lightning strikes” during the afternoon. 
 

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WEATHER

IN PICTURES: French town hit by freak June hailstorm

A French town has been hit by a freak hailstorm that left locals clearing drifts of ice in the streets with shovels and snow ploughs.

Published: 29 June 2021 16:44 CEST
IN PICTURES: French town hit by freak June hailstorm
Photo: Sapeurs-pompiers des Vosges

The hail struck the town of Plombières-les-Bains in the Vosges mountains on Tuesday morning.

Romain Munier, head of communications for the local emergency services, told French media: “There were up to 60 centimetres of accumulated hail” while in the wider area, “up to 10 millimetres of water accumulated in six minutes”.

https://twitter.com/timbaland57/status/1409881345741012994

Locals were pictured clearing the street of ice with shovels and snow ploughs after the storm passed and the fire and rescue crews for the Vosges area said they had received 56 callouts in total.

Large areas of France are on weather alert for storms until Thursday, as a ‘cold drop’ passes over the country leading to extremely unsettled weather.

In most areas, however, the storms will be confined to heavy rain and thunder.

In neighbouring Switzerland, the Swiss news agency ATS reported giant hailstones up to seven centimetres wide in the canton of Lucerne.

In the canton of Fribourg, the police and fire brigade were called 300 times, including to rescue a class of 16 children and two adults caught in the hail.

Six of the children and one adult were taken to hospital.

At least five people were injured in the German-speaking Swiss cantons, including a cyclist who suffered head injuries from hailstones, according to ATS, whilst in Germany severe flooding has hit parts of the country including Stuttgart.

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