Assette the French cat who survived 18 days without food or water

Cats proverbially have nine lives don't they?

Well a French moggy called Assette has certainly had a part in maintaining that superstition - and then some.

Her incredible story appears in Monday's edition of the regional daily Le Progrès and tells how she was locked inside a house for 18 days without food and water before being freed weak and skeletal, but alive.

Assette belongs to Violaine, the daughter of actor and director Michel Crespin, best known for his work with street theatre companies.

She (Assette) was spending the summer at Crespin's holiday home in the village or Château-Chalon in eastern France.

The director's neighbour was an elderly woman who had recently died and in early August her children emptied the house of its contents before putting it on the market for sale.

That is of course when Assette's period of involuntary captivity began, says the paper, because she managed to get herself locked inside what was now an abandoned house.

Crespin began to worry after not having seen Assette for several days and began looking for her. He put up posters and distributed leaflets describing the missing black cat with a distinctive broken tail, and he mobilised fellow villagers to help him in his search.

One neighbour suggested that perhaps the four-year-old moggy was locked inside the abandoned house, but a look through the windows and plenty of calling of her name yielded no response.

It was with a heavy heart that he had to inform his daughter that Assette had gone missing and was nowhere to be found.

Fast forward to September 5 and Violaine, who lives 70 kilometres away in the city of Besançon, was in Château-Chalon for its annual festival when she decided to collect some apples from the garden of the abandoned house.

Almost instinctively while there, she called out the name of her cat...only to be greeted by a miaowed response from within the house.

A quick call to the number on the "for sale" board posted outside the property, and after a couple of hours wait for someone to unlock the front door and out charged Assette, thin, hungry and thirsty but otherwise in fine fettle.

"We didn't know in what state we would find her," Crespin told the newspaper

"It's just incredible - 18 days with nothing to eat or drink."

And in a new leaflet he has distributed to fellow villagers he writes, "If you see Assette in the street, say hello to her. She deserves it."

Some consider black cats unlucky, others lucky. The author's (almost) black cat, Hiro. For photos of Assette, click here.

Heroic teenagers save baby and mother from blaze

Majid Gotte, Yacine Chouidira and Samir Hamidi have become national heroes in France.

The media has been full of praise over the weekend for the calm heroics of the three teenagers who came to the rescue of a mother and her baby trapped inside a burning apartment.

But in spite of their new-found fame, the trio remain humble, according to the regional newspaper, Le Progrès, and are even somewhat reticent to admit they are heroes of any sort in interviews with local and national television, radio and press.

Majid Gotte reunited with two-year-old Assia, TF1 news screen shot

The drama occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning in the town of Tarare, 42 kilometres to the northwest of the city of Lyon.

As Le Progrès reports, Majid Gotte, Yacine Chouidira, both 18 years old and Samir Hamidi, 17 , were walking home after having attended a concert in the town, when they noticed smoke coming out of a third-floor window of a block of apartments.

The trio acted quickly, calling the emergency services before entering the building themselves to warn sleeping residents that there was the likelihood of a fire in one of the apartments and it might be a good idea get out as soon as possible.

When Majid, reached the third floor he knocked on the door of one of the apartments and encountered Khalida Zoubiri, who had been burnt while trying to put out the fire in her flat.

The 27-year-old told him that her two-year-old-daughter Assia was asleep in her bedroom and flames had prevented her from entering.

"I hesitated at first," he told TF1 prime time news. "But as soon as the mother told me that her daughter was in the other room, I knew that I had to do something."

And that "something" was to enter the room in spite of the flames and smoke, and carry the child out wrapped in a blanket.

Once Majid had brought Assia to safety, he then re-entered the apartment to help the mother.

By the time the fire service had arrived almost all the residents had been evacuated and there was no doubt as far as one of the police officers on duty was concerned that the quick thinking of Majid and his friends had been instrumental in making the job of the emergency services easier..

"They reacted very fast and the building was virtually evacuated by the time fire fighters arrived," Eric Denis, a police officer who was one of the first on the scene told Le Progres.

"Getting people out of the building was very important as it helped the fire fighters get on with the job of putting out the flames when they arrived," he continued.

"What they did was commendable, remarkable and courageous, especially as they didn't know any of the people," he added.

Assia and Majid were taken to a nearby hospital and kept in overnight for observations before being allowed home.

Zoubiri, is still in hospital being treated for second-degree burns.

While praise has been unanimous for what the trio did, and especially for their ability to remain calm and level-headed, they have remained rather modest.

"We did the same as we would do for our own families," Samir told Le Progrès.

"We just acted on instinct because there was nothing else to do."

For Majid, what happened also showed that France's youth is capable of more than the "delinquent" image it's often accorded.

"It shows that there's more to adolescents in France than hooliganism and petty crime," he said.

"They can also do things that help, and that's something we talk about less often."

Drunk in charge of a lawnmower

For one French man this year's May Day celebrations finished before they had begun after police pulled him over for being drunk in charge of a...motorised lawnmower.

May Day was last weekend - a day recognised in many countries as International Workers' Day or Labour Day if you will.

Here in France it's a public holiday even though this year of course May 1 fell on a Saturday.

And there's a tradition that unions take to the streets to demonstrate "solidarity".

There's also a much older and perhaps more quaint custom associated with the day, which dates back to the 16th century; that of offering and receiving a sprig lily of the valley, which is not only a symbol that Spring is well and truly here but is also supposed to be "lucky".

For one man though in the village of Le Pasquier in the eastern département of Jura, the celebrations never really got underway and fortune certainly wasn't on his side as the day before, after apparently having spent a couple of hours in the forest collecting flowers, he was stopped by police as he made his way home.

The 56-year-old was, according to the regional daily Le Progrès, happily driving along not in a car but aboard his motorised lawnmower when he was pulled over.

Hardly a chase reminiscent of those US action films probably as the thing barely goes faster than walking pace, but nonetheless, as the police reminded the newspaper, a motorised lawnmower is not a vehicle "authorised to circulate on public roads in France."

And it didn't take long for the two officers to realise that the man wasn't exactly fully in control of his "capacities".

"It was clear when we started questioning him that he wasn't in a 'normal' state," one of the officers told the newspaper.

"He was talking incoherently and smelled of alcohol."

Sure enough when breathylised, he was found to be well over the limit, and the police immediately impounded his unusual "mode of transport".

Not surprisingly perhaps he'll face charges on two counts when his case comes to court next month; driving an unregistered vehicle and doing so while drunk.

But although he's likely to face a hefty fine, he won't lose his licence, as he doesn't have one.