Two pandas at a zoo in central France were on their way back to China on Tuesday following the female being diagnosed with kidney failure, after hundreds of visitors bid them a final goodbye.

Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi arrived at the Beauval Zoo in 2012 as part of China's "panda diplomacy" programme, which sees the black-and-white bears dispatched across the globe as soft-power ambassadors.

The two pandas, both 17, were meant to stay in France until January 2027, but they left the zoo on Tuesday morning to return to China to live out their retirement at the Chengdu panda sanctuary.

The pair were loaded onto a truck bound for a Paris airport, each in their own box with a glass window dotted with ventilation holes, with the words "Bon voyage" and their name inscribed on the side.

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