French care home looks beyond COVID with table football and minigolf

Residents Paul Souveton, Bernard Sellier and Frederique Benichou play mini golf at "Les Figuiers" retirement home (EHPAD - Housing Establishment for Dependant Elderly People) amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Villeneuve-Loubet, France, May 5, 2021. Picture taken May 5, 2021. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

VILLENEUVE-LOUBET, France (Reuters) - Bernard Sellier stood a little hunched at the table, his hands gripping the rods of tiny football players and a boyish grin on his 86-year-old face at a return to normal life in his French care home.

For months during the COVID-19 crisis, there had been strict rules on social interaction and visiting rights as staff fought to keep a ferocious killer of the weak and elderly at bay.