A seven months pregnant woman was killed in a freak accident when a falling rock crushed her car.
Karine Vocant, 36, was travelling through the Pyrenees Mountains when the boulder, weighing half a tonne, fell from the side of the mountain and onto her car.
She had been a passenger in the car which her husband Patrick Marchand, 46, had been driving along the D934 from the ski station at Artouste.
He escaped from the wreckage uninjured but was taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Pau suffering from shock and he remains there receiving counselling.
The couple, from Dordogne, were expecting their first baby, French newspaper Sud Ouest reported.
Marie-Thérèse Marchand, Mr Marchand's mother, said: "We're all in shock. Karine and Patrick had known each other for six years. They were having their first child together. Patrick was overjoyed."
Shocking photographs taken of the scene show the huge boulder still wedged in the side of the car as a recovery truck takes it away from the scene.
A source from the police investigation said: "For some unexplained reason the rock detached from the mountainside. The local prefecture has asked an expert to visit the site to find out why and to see if there is a risk of others falling."
A police investigation has been launched into the circumstances surrounding the accident and the car and boulder have been taken to a police station.