A tiny French village in Paris's leafy western suburbs is surrounded by about 100 wild wallabies, who thrive in a nearby forest a world away from their native Australia.

The colony of the red-necked Bennett's wallabies are originally from Tasmania and were brought into a zoological reserve in the village of Emance, about 70 kilometres southwest of Paris.

A group of them escaped through holes in the fencing in the 1970s into the surrounding forests.

Researchers now believe that there are about 100 of the marsupials living in the wild in a climate very similar to Tasmania.

Spottings have shocked locals.

"A neighbour asked me, 'Did you see the kangaroo?'" Marylene, a local grocer, said.

"I said 'are you high?" she recalled about the exchange in June last year.

But it was no hallucination.

Marylene saw the evidence for herself.

The animal was there "in front of the gate as if it was waiting for the grocer to open," she said.

"Then it went off down the road with little regard for traffic signs."

Bruno Munilla from the forestry centre in nearby Rambouillet said the animals' numbers could range from between 100 and 150.

Most of them live around Emance but some have migrated as far as Ulis, approximately 40 kilometres east.

Wallaby researcher Laure Raad said the marsupials, whose life span can go up to 15 years, "integrated really well into the local ecosystem because they found food and shelter here".

"They're safe because the forest gives them shelter and they find plenty to eat, feeding mostly on wild berries and green plants," she said.

Apart from the abundance of food, they also do not have to worry about predators.

The 80 centimetre, 15 kilogram animals are too big for the local foxes.

Their biggest danger is cars.

"We probably have about 30 to 40 collisions per year," said Mr Munilla.

"Not all are deadly but 15 to 20 animals do get killed."

The wallaby has become a kind of mascot for Emance said Mayor Christine David ( AFP: Jean-Christophe Verhaegen )

Sceptical insurance companies have a hard time believing people who claim a wallaby caused their accident, said Emance's mayor Christine David.

She said she had to provide "certificates saying that there are in fact wallabies in the area".

Attitudes towards the wild wallabies have shifted over the years.

There was a time when their presence caused confusion.

"About 20 to 25 years ago, it was all taboo! There was a sort of code of silence," Stephane Walczak from the Hunting Federation of the Ile-de-France said.

Mr Walczak said a ban on hunting the wallabies had helped them to multiply.

"Kangaroos fall into a legal void," he said.

"We can't hunt them because in France species are listed as either game, pests, protected species or pets. Kangaroos appear nowhere."

In 2003, some yellow signs featuring a leaping wallaby silhouette, installed by local pranksters, helped lighten the mood and "loosen tongues", Mr Walczak said.

Now the animal has become a sort of mascot, Emance's mayor said.

Marylene never saw the wallaby again, but she says she is keeping her eyes peeled just to be sure.

"So now if I see a pink elephant I wouldn't immediately brush it off," she said.

AFP