19,000 homes without power in storm-hit France

RENNES: Powerful winds gusting to hurricane force left around 19,000 homes in the western French region of Brittany without power early Sunday, the national electricity grid Enedis said.

Winds powering to 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour battered the Breton peninsula overnight, French meteorological agency Meteo France said.

It lifted a high-winds alert for the region but maintained it for 10 departments -- the rough equivalent of counties -- in northwestern France and for three in the centre-east of the country.

The agency said the storm conditions in the northeastern Atlantic had combined with a strong airstream directed at northwestern France, producing "an event that occurs three or four times per year."