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France wildfires force mass evacuation

Image captionSome 4,000 hectares (15.4 sq miles) of land have burned along the Mediterranean coast Wildfires in south-eastern France have forced the evacuation of 10,000 people overnight, officials say. Hundreds of firefighters have been deployed to battle the fires near Bormes-les-Mimoses, in the country's Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. France earlier asked its EU neighbours for more help fighting the fires. Some 4,000 hectares (15.4 sq miles) of land have burned along the Mediterranean coast, in the mountainous interior and on the island of Corsica. "The evacuations, at least 10,000, followed the progression of the fire," a fire official was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. "It's an area that doubles or triples its population in summer," the official added. One of the worst fires is raging in an area near the popular resort of Saint-Tropez. In Corsica, hundreds of homes have been evacuated. Overall, more than 4,000 firefighters a...