Bee attack leaves three in critical condition and dozens injured in France

Three people in a French town remain in a "critical but stable condition" following an unusual bee attack at the weekend which left 24 passersby injured, the mayor of Aurillac said on Monday.

Twenty-four people were hurt and three were rushed to hospital in critical condition when hundreds of bees suddenly attacked people in the central-southern town on Sunday morning.

According to local media, one of them was a 78-year-old woman who was stung 25 times and had to be resuscitated after a cardiorespiratory arrest.

Police and firefighters fenced off the area and a beekeeper was called in to smoke out the bees - a safe way to calm the insects.

A local man called Andrée said he witnessed "very panicked people" trying to bat off the bees. "I could tell they were being attacked by something but I couldn't figure out what," he told French media.

The mayor of Aurillac, Pierre Mathonier, was reported as saying that Asian hornets threatening a beehive may have been the catalyst for the attack.

But Christian Carrier, the president of the regional beekeepers' union, was sceptical.

He told France Info that bees generally avoid leaving their colonies altogether in the presence of Asian hornets.

Instead, he said that the unusual incident may have been due to the bee colony becoming too large for its beehive and becoming "overactive" when the beekeeper handled it.

"It may be that [the bees] didn't have enough space and that their colony had no intention of swarming. This can trigger strong aggression," Mr Carrier said.