Saint-Aignan (France) (AFP)

The twins were born: Huan Huan, the female panda loaned by China to the Beauval ZooParc (Loir-et-Cher), gave birth to two healthy babies overnight from Sunday to Monday.

The two small plantigrades come to enrich Beauval's panda family, already strong with their father Yuan Zi and their big brother Yuan Meng, born August 4, 2017.

"The two babies are pink. Both are in perfect health. They look quite big. They are magnificent", reacted the president of the ZooParc, Rodolphe Delord, from the control center of the Center of reproduction and safeguard of Beauval pandas.

Huan Huan first gave the first signs of unrest on Sunday around 5:30 p.m.

Alternating activity and sleep, she finally lost water at 12:30 a.m. before giving birth to her babies at 1:03 a.m.

Immediately, the babies were lively and squealed.

A caregiver from the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Center, who came especially for the births, managed to seize one of the baby pandas to provide care and place it in an incubator.

It weighed 149 grams, a "very reassuring" weight for a baby panda, according to zoo veterinarian Baptiste Mulot.

"The bigger they are, the less fragile they are. It's very reassuring. They are in the high range because they must weigh between 100 and 150 grams at birth," explained the veterinarian.

-Mother instinct-

The second was also waiting to be examined closely.

However, he had a little more time with his mother, the latter having adopted, with experience, the right attitudes to take care of her baby, according to the caretakers.

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In two to three days, vets will be able to determine the sex of the newborns.

"They will be placed in the incubator alternately and they will go to suck their mother alternately. They will be monitored 24 hours a day before the public can see them in a few weeks," said Delord.

At the end of March, the two giant pandas, Huan Huan and Yuan Zi, one of Beauval's main attractions, had tried to mate.

Artificial insemination was also carried out as a precaution, the female being fertile only 24 to 48 hours per year.

It was through this technique that Huan Huan gave birth to her first twins, only one of whom was found to be viable.

Now 4 years old, the first panda born in France now weighs more than one hundred kilos.

Since 2016, giant pandas are no longer "in danger" of extinction on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

But the species remains "vulnerable", while 500 pandas live in captivity and 2,000 in the wild in China.

The two newborns from Loir-et-Cher will only have final names in 100 days.

According to tradition, they will be chosen by the Chinese First Lady.

As a sign that the birth is part of "panda diplomacy".

China, which loaned Yuan Zi and Huan Huan for ten years to France in 2012, indeed uses its friendly two-colored bears as symbols of its diplomatic friendships.

© 2021 AFP