The Herminia depression earlier this week unleashed downpours on northwestern France, sparking some of the worst floods in decades.

Surrounded by two rivers, a canal and marshes, several parts of the town of Redon in Brittany have been sitting in water since Wednesday.

The Vilaine river's level on Thursday morning was hovering just below that of historic floods in 2001, official alert body Vigicrues reported.

The river had been projected to swell further later in the day and Friday, but by Thursday evening it had remained at more or less the same level, the body's website showed.

"Things are settling down," said local official Amaury de Saint-Quentin.

Redon's mayor, Pascal Duchene, had earlier in the day said the town was bracing for a "peak" in coming days, and estimated 750 residents could be affected.

The Red Cross had set up an emergency shelter for 50 people at a local sports centre, with camp beds lined in a row and tables and chairs set up under its basketball hoops.

A second shelter was being set up for 200 people, a Red Cross official said.

Adeline Bernard, 29, was one of the first people to find refuge at the sporst hall.

"When I saw that the electricity was going to cut, and that the water was rising, I thought: 'That's it, I'm out of here'," she said.

- 'A bit scary' -

Isabelle Rousselet, 66, said she was happy to be living in a higher part of town.

"It'll take time for it all to drain away. It's a bit scary," she said.

In a flooded part of Redon, one resident waded through the water outside her home in rubber boots, while another wobbled along planks of wood balanced over cinder blocks at one street corner.

In the adjacent town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon, on the other side of a flooded bridge, police had evacuated 300 people.

In total, around 1,600 people have been forced to leave their homes in the wider region.

Farmers union FDSEA said that some stables had been flooded with up to a metre (yard) of water, and that cereals planted in the autumn have been "drowned".

President Emmanuel Macron assured on X on Thursday his "solidarity with residents of the west" of France.

Scientists have shown that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making storms more severe, super-charged by warmer oceans.

Herminia's impact on France's northwestern regions was exacerbated by the fact that the ground was already drenched from previous rainfall.

It was followed by more rain on Wednesday.