Store manager rescues girl from car - father threatens to file a complaint

It has been hot in France over the past couple of days - very hot.

Temperatures have climbed as high as 40 degrees Celsius in some parts of the country.

(from Wikipedia , author: Lykaestria)

Not only is it inadvisable to leave child alone in a car, it's also dangerous and neglectful.

Everyone surely knows that it's not only inadvisable to leave a child unattended in a car, it's also dangerous as the temperature inside can be life-threatening, even with the windows open.

Some parents though appear to "know better" as in the case of a German couple over the weekend in the town of Villeneuve-lès-Béziers in the south of France.

They left their three-year-old daughter alone in their vehicle in the car park of a supermarket while they went about shopping.

Other customers noticed her by herself in the four-wheel drive and informed the store's management who made three announcements (two in French and one in German) asking the owners of the vehicle to come to the information desk immediately.

There was no response.

In the meantime the store's deputy director, Vincent Touya, had gone out to the car park to see for himself what state the girl was in, and even though the car windows were open slightly, as he told the regional daily, Midi Libre, he had to take immediate action.

"She seemed to be all right but the car was in full sun and the outside temperature was already 30 degrees," he told the newspaper.

"I put in a call to the emergency services and they told me I had to get her out of the car at once," he continued.

"So I took a hammer and broke the window. She was bright red, sweating heavily and when I took her in my arms her hair was soaked as though she had just taken a shower."

He carried the girl into the store and gave her some water and food.

A happy ending and Touya a hero!

Well that's what you would think.

Somehow the parents weren't of the same opinion.



Il secourt un enfant, ses parents portent... par Europe1fr

They were eventually found and according to Touya didn't appear in the least concerned - quite the opposite.

"The mother just continued shopping and filling her trolley," he told Europe 1 radio.

"And the father looked at me as though I were guilty of something."

But it gets worse.

Far from admitting any negligence, the parents insisted that their daughter had been asleep in the car and they hadn't wanted to wake her.

"There wasn't a word of thanks from either of them and the father even said he would file a complaint against me because I had broken the window of his four-wheel drive," said Touya.

"Everyone else in the store was outraged."

Thieves steal a vineyard-worth of grapes overnight

Harvest time has been and gone - quite literally for Roland Cavaillé. He's a winemaker in the village of Villeneuve-lès-Béziers in southern France.

Cavaillé grows just 10 hectares of grapes and last weekend went along to see how two of the hectares - planted with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes - were doing.

image Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from Wikipedia, Agne27

"I wanted to see not only whether they were ripe enough for harvesting," he told the regional newspaper Midi Libre. "I also wanted to check on the state of the vines themselves."

But Cavaillé was in for a nasty surprise that particular morning, as someone else had been there before him, and harvested the whole two hectares.

The entire crop of Cabernet Sauvignon, totalling around 30 tonnes and valued at €15,000, had been stolen.

A neighbour heard the sound of a harvesting machine in the morning - not so unusual for farmers eager to make an early start - and there were also tyre tracks of a small lorry which had been presumably used to transport the grapes to nobody knows where.

But with a full moon to guide them and the relative isolation of the vineyard, the job of "lifting" the grapes undisturbed made it that much easier for the thieves.

"It has happened before but never to me," he told the national daily Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien.

"It's the work of professionals," he added.

"A private person most likely," explaining that it wouldn't be the work of someone supplying the local co-operative as it requires a provenance for all grapes supplied.


Les voleurs vendangent 30 tonnes de raisin en une nuit
envoyé par MCETV. - Gag, sketch et parodie humouristique en video.

"I'm disgusted by what happened," he told Midi Libre.

"We work hard to make ends meet, he said

As national radio Europe 1 reported there's even more bad news because Cavaillé won't see a centime in insurance money even though there's "irrefutable evidence" that a theft occurred.

"We're covered as far as theft of the vines is concerned," he said.

"But not for the grapes."