Pétanque player, 68, dies after being ‘hit in head with metal boule’

“According to the evidence … it seems that it is the 81-year-old man who struck the victim, who is deceased, with a pétanque boule,” Alexa Dubourg, the public prosecutor in Mont-de-Marsan, told local paper Sud Ouest.

She said the incident was “an argument which degenerated into a physical [confrontation]”.

Investigations are continuing to determine the role played by each person in attendance at the boulodrome on 17 June, she added.

Pétanque is a French game that involves rolling hollow steel balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball.

Local radio station Ici Gascogne said the man did not immediately die of his injuries, but instead collapsed minutes later after suffering a heart attack.

One local resident told AFP news agency: “There is a mega rivalry between the beach pétanque players and those in the town but I didn’t think it was at that level.”