A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves.

A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves, officials said on Friday.

Britain had Margaret Thatcher, Germany has Angela Merkel. Could France get Segolene Royal?

French voters today delivered a stinging defeat to President Jacques Chirac’s government and its programme of painful economic reforms in regional elections that turned into a national vote of censure, exit polls showed.