Marseille

Paper planes have soared way beyond the classroom. Now every bored schoolboy’s elicit past-time has become a worldwide sport with thousands of fans battling to carry off the championships. ”The secret of a good plane is patience, symmetry and a good eye to feel where you need to fold,” said Nicolas Deschamps,

A 60-year-old man shared a two-room apartment with his mother’s corpse for five years, concealing her death so he could receive her pension, French police said on Saturday. Intrigued that the woman born in 1904 still received social-security payments, social services in the port city of Marseilles asked police to investigate.

A dead hedgehog that was at the origin of an airport mishap involving an Air France passenger plane nearly seven years ago has ended up costing the French government more than €3-million (about R23-million) in a court ruling on Tuesday.

A weather alert was lifted on Thursday after floods and storms ravaged southern France, leaving five dead. Around the country’s second city Marseille, which was declared a disaster zone on Wednesday as a result of torrential rain and winds of up to 150kph, thousands of people were returning to their homes.