PARIS: A dozen French firefighters were called in to cut their way to a 10-foot-long python hiding a shop just outside Paris. “We were alerted by someone who said he had seen a snake on the roof of a shop,” a fire brigade spokesman said.

“We don’t know where it escaped from. Probably from an apartment,” he said. Police had taken charge of the reptile.

The firefighters cut a hole in the false ceiling of a shop in Gentilly, south of Paris, to retrieve the snake. Pythons are among the longest species of snakes. They feed on birds and small mammals, squeezing them to death.—Reuters