A lady walking with her dog discovered a leg on a beach on the Mediterranean coast, near Narbonne, AFP learned on Monday (November 16) from the gendarmes.
A DNA analysis is underway to determine if the member corresponds to a person reported as missing to the authorities.
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The gendarmes wondered if the leg came from a person who had fallen from a boat, from a person who disappeared from the floods that recently struck the south of France or from another origin.
The only certainty is that the death is not recent, the limb having deteriorated due to prolonged immersion.