It does not resemble any desert plain in outback Australia, but around 50 kangaroos which escaped a French animal park 30 years ago are happily living wild in a forest west of Paris.

The grey marsupials broke free from the Emance nature reserve in the Yvelines department and are now bounding around woods bordering a dozen villages in the neighbouring Eure-et-Loir department, Le Parisien daily reported.

"The kangaroos' presence in the forest didn't happen yesterday. They began making the woods their own after some people who tried to steal them released several of them," a park employee said.

Signs signalling their presence have been erected along roads bisecting the southern part of the huge Rambouillet forest.

"Kangaroos have been part of our daily life for 20 years," said Francoise Grangeon, mayor of the town of Emance.

Even the magazine of the town school is called the "Joking Kangaroo", Grangeon said.

One expert said the kangaroos survive on buds and leaves, and reproduce in the month of August.

AFP