They came to France in search of the good life, setting up home in a picturesque village deep in the French countryside, reports The Daily Telegraph.
Three families, one of them British, fell in love with the small farming community of Bussière-Boffy, near Limoges, and several years ago decided to settle there, raising their children amid the rolling hills and lush woodland.
But now that dreamy lifestyle has become a nightmare.
The families have chosen to live in yurts - a circular, latticed framework of poles covered with felt or skins, which is the traditional dwelling of the nomadic peoples of the Asian steppes. And the local mayor has now taken to the courts to force them to leave, with the increasingly-bitter legal battle dividing the village and pitting those who support the British and French "yurtists" against the allies of the mayor, who claims they are acting “like a bunch of kids” by refusing to comply with planning laws.
“I have nothing against people living in yurts. All I’m doing is applying the law,” said Jean-Pierre Barrière, mayor of the village.
The families disagree.
“It’s social cleansing,” said Alex Bovet, a Frenchman who has a yurt on land he and his partner Sara Caumet own. He described the mayor’s actions as “administrative harassment”.
It all began so differently.
The yurt dwellers say at first they were well received in the village of 350 people.
Peter Bateman, 44, an artist and antiques dealer from Nottingham, moved to the area eight years ago with his partner Janie Corbett, a Shiatsu practitioner, and their children Branwen, 14 and Tarn, 10.
Falling in love with the spot on their way back to Britain after travelling round France, they pitched up in the field with the owner’s consent and put their two children into the local school.
Read more of this report from The Daily Telegraph.