Grenoble

A French court of appeals on Monday acquitted a pasta-company boss of charges of cheating customers that arose after a client found the remains of a dead rat in a packet of pasta. In September last year, a court in the south-eastern city of Grenoble found Guy Callejon and his Panzani pasta company guilty.

A former snowboard champion turned sports cameraman and a friend were convicted by a French court on Monday for making a video in which pornographic images were flash-cut into a DVD production about snowboarding. "I did it as a laugh, but it was a bad joke," Julien Joud told the court in the eastern French city of Grenoble.

Three pensioners were in intensive care in a Grenoble hospital on Thursday after ordering a glass each of a popular local liqueur, génépi, and being mistakenly served caustic soda. The three, a man of 69, his wife, 68, and her 94-year-old mother, were still in a critical condition after drinking the highly corrosive and toxic cleaning fluid.