French village swept for bombs

SEDAN, France - A French village has been evacuated as soldiers prepare to clear unexploded German munitions from World War I.

Some 130 police posted at two entrances to the village collected badges, distributed earlier at the town hall, from the nearly 600 residents of Chatelet-sur-Retourne, in the Ardennes region of north-east France.

Police handed out the badges to ensure no-one was left behind as the army embarked on a 10-day mission to clear the area of 164 tonnes of unexploded shells left behind by retreating German troops in October 1918.

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The emptying-out of Chatelet-sur-Retourne came just six weeks after a similar operation to clear a World War I weapons stockpile from Vimy, in northern France, forced the evacuation of 12,000 people.

Munitions dating from the last century's two world wars are routinely discovered in France -- but the recent evacuations are the first of their kind in years, according to Associated Press.

In Vimy, the clearance operation involved the removal of toxic chemicals, according to AP, which noted that villagers in Chatelet-sur-Retourne, unlike in Vimy, were given plenty of advance notice to prepare for the evacuation.

While soldiers are sweeping Chatelet of ordnance, volunteers will be allowed to enter the village for two hours a day to feed chickens, rabbits and other small animals, the Associated Press reported. Cows and sheep will continue to graze in the empty town.

During the clearance, about 150 police will patrol the town in shifts to ensure nothing is stolen from resident's abandoned homes, France's Le Monde newspaper reported.

The national railway service, SNCF, will limit train traffic through the town to specified periods in the morning and evening.

In Vimy, about 55 tonnes of the most hazardous munitions -- including mustard gas -- were hauled out the town in a high-security convoy to waste facilities in nearby Chalons-en-Champagne.

Construction workers discovered the Ardennes stockpile a month ago.

The clearance operation has forced Chatelet-sur-Retourne's town hall to temporarily relocate to makeshift quarters in neighbouring Neuflize.

Mayor Bernard Taillard told AP: "We took everything from computers to, very important, the civil registration books" recording births, deaths and marriages of every citizen in the village.