Snow strands hundreds of French motorists

Hundreds of motorists were stranded overnight in northern France after heavy snowfall blocked roads, forcing some to abandon their cars and prompting others to sleep in their vehicles.

Hundreds of others spent the night in community centres and hotels near the north-eastern city of Nancy, where road crews worked through the night to clear up to 30 centimetres of snowfall, said the Regional Road Information and Co-ordination Centre in nearby Metz.