-
Covid-19 cases expected to spike in France this summer
The spring booster vaccination campaign is still underway after being extended due to low uptake
-
Video: French police play ‘Titanic’ theme while driving through flooded street in Paris
Fun reaction to storm attracts millions of viewers on social media
-
Ski resort in French Alps to close due to lack of snow and funding cuts
Local officials have announced the closure of the Alpe du Grand Serre station in Isère, halting plans to keep it open year-round
Lyon auction sells gigantic mammoth skeleton for €550k
A gigantic mammoth skeleton that is said to be well over 10,000 years old has been sold at auction in Lyon for almost €550,000.

The near-complete skeleton of a male adult mammoth was sold at auction on Saturday 16 December to Strasbourg businessman Pierre-Etienne Bindschedler, whose company has a mammoth as its logo, explains French news source FranceInfo.
Measuring over three metres high and five metres long, the Paleolithic-era skeleton is estimated to be between 12,000 to 15,000 years old.
It had been valued at a minimum of €450,000.
It was eventually sold for €548,250, having been brought to auction by an unnamed English lord, and will now sit in the foyer of Bindschedler’s business headquarters.
The skeleton is extremely well-preserved - with even the gigantic, curved, three-metre-long tusks intact - due to having spent 12,000 years in Siberian permafrost before being found.
“It is an exceptional specimen,” said Eric Mickeler, international natural history expert, quoted in FranceInfo. “The collector has taken great care [with it] and it shows excellent levels of fossilisation at the site at which the mammoth fell when it died.”
Stay informed:
Sign up to our free weekly e-newsletter
Subscribe to access all our online articles and receive our printed monthly newspaper The Connexion at your home. News analysis, features and practical help for English-speakers in France