A tornado tore through the village of Pomas in southwestern France, injuring 41 people and damaging hundreds of homes. Fifteen of the injured were taken to hospital.
French authorities had placed swathes of the country's southwest on orange alert for storms before the tornado struck, and numerous areas were hit by power outages and transport chaos.
Pomas, which has a population of around 1,000, was the hardest-hit village, with around 300 homes damaged. Some houses had their roofs ripped off by the tornado.
A pregnant woman was among those injured when part of her home collapsed. Her husband told AFP that she was taken to hospital after being trapped beneath a falling wall. Police said a sofa had protected her. The condition of her baby was not known.
Video footage showed the twister growing larger and picking up dirt as it moved through the town in the Aude region of southwestern France.
Emergency response in Pomas
More than 120 emergency workers were deployed to the scene, local authorities said. Gendarmes were due to patrol the affected areas throughout the night.
Two shelters were opened for residents unable to stay in their homes, one in Pomas and another in nearby Limoux. Several roads were closed after fallen trees and cars were strewn across the streets.
Vuelta a España stage cancelled
In Aude, officials cancelled the third stage of the Vuelta a España cycling race, which was being held in the area, after a hailstorm forced riders to seek shelter. The Vuelta a España is one of cycling's three Grand Tours, alongside the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia.
Hailstones measuring up to 3cm to 5cm were also reported in nearby areas. Météo Languedoc, an independent weather forecasting service in the region, warned people to avoid the Aude region because the storm posed a threat to life. The warning was lifted by 7pm local time.
Winds reached 117km/h
The national weather service, Météo-France, said winds had reached up to 73 miles (117km) per hour in the nearby village of Arquettes-en-Val.
Storms across southern France also disrupted the transport network, delaying trains, forcing road closures, and causing delays and cancellations at airports in Bordeaux, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse and as far north as Paris, according to Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot.
An estimated 2,800 homes were left without electricity across ten villages, officials said.
