The annual bare-back Palio horse race round a make-shift course in the central square of Siena in Italy is usually considered fairly dangerous, but has proved fatal to an Avignon councillor this year, not as a result of being hit by a horse but by falling masonry.

Alain Emphoux, 77, was attending an official banquet on the eve of the race when a piece of stone broke off from a balcony and struck him.

He was taken to hospital but later died.