Paris - It will take up to two centuries to restore France's forests, devastated by Christmas weekend storms which killed 87 people, the National Forestry Office (ONF) said yesterday.
The ONF said gales blowing up to 125 m.p.h. uprooted or broke in half 270 million trees - the equivalent of 100 million cubic metres of wood - in one of western Europe's most wooded countries.
"All kinds of trees have been affected. Century-old oaks are knocked over, young pines are broken, beeches, maples are hit," the ONF secretary-general, Mr Jacques Descargues, told French television.
