Shivering man rescued and fined after trying to cross the Pyrenees for cheap cigarettes

A MAN who attempted to cross the Pyrenees mountains from France to Spain to buy cheap cigarettes was rescued after losing his way, only to be fined for violating confinement rules.

The unnamed man initially tried to carry out his illicit cigarette run by car, setting out on Saturday from Perpignan in southern France to La Jonquera in Spain.

When police told him to turn back at a checkpoint, he tried to cross the border on foot across the mountain range.

While weather conditions were anything but dire, he was clearly no mountaineer and “apparently lacked a sense of direction”, according to local media.

“He fell into a stream, in brambles, got lost and ended up contacting the emergency services,” a mountain unit of the gendarmerie police force in the Pyrenees-orientales region said on Twitter. A helicopter was then dispatched to rescue the man, “exhausted, shivering with cold and lost”, it went on, showing pictures of the individual being winched to safety.

The man was fined €135 (£118) for “non-respect of confinement rules”. These stipulate that French residents can leave their homes only for essential reasons, and then with a self-certified note stating their business.

Unless they are key workers, sorties for shopping or exercise should be conducted within 0.6 miles of home and for no more than an hour.

“We remind you once again. STAY AT HOME,” concluded the tweet. In normal circumstances, many residents of southern France cross the border to buy cigarettes, alcohol, some foodstuffs and fuel, which are often cheaper in Spain.

France has been in lockdown since March 17 and will be so at least until April 15 – and probably until May at the earliest. Parks and beaches are shut, as are mountain ranges beyond 100m above people’s place of confinement.

However, a local 24-year-old crosscountry skier who flouted the rules to scale a slope in the Mont-blanc range fell to his death over the weekend.

Mountain gendarmes recovered the body on Sunday en route for the Goûter refuge, which stands at 3,800m.