French police could not believe their luck when they were called out to a burglary and found a hapless thief stuck in a shop window still holding the hammer he had used to break in.

The 46-year-old man was arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning in the town of Mauléon-Licharre in south-west France.

It took a while for news of the arrest to reach the national gendarmerie's headquarters in Paris but yesterday they published a photo on social media showing the man half-in and half-out of the hole in the window.

The national gendarmerie posted this image of the hapless burglar on Twitter

The gendarmerie gleefully tweeted: 'Drunk, he robbed a shop but got stuck...in the window before being arrested,' and then added the hashtag ThugLife.

Firefighters had to be called upon to free the unidentified man from the window of the jewellery shop and he was then arrested.

The Local reported that the police had been called out earlier to the shop but found nothing amiss and assumed it was a false alarm.

But when they returned around 5am they caught him red-handed.

Even Inspector Clouseau, the French police buffoon played by Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther films, could have solved this particular crime.

Police found stolen jewellery at the man's home, confirming he had managed to get in and out of the hole at least once before getting stuck.

The bungling burglar has been in custody ever since and will appear in court today.