France’s national rail has declared war on wild boars that are running amok on tracks, causing thousands of hours of delays and millions of euros worth of damage.

Asterix’s sidekick Obelix single-handedly kept sangliers, as they are known, in check by knocking them on the head and roasting them on the spit in the famed comic book charting the adventures of the plucky Gauls.

However, France’s million licenced hunters are proving less effective.

Despite culling around a million per year, it is estimated that France’s wild boar population has ballooned to more than two million today thanks to plentiful food supplies and larger litters in milder winters. That’s up from 300,000 in 1995.

As well as uprooting farmers’ fields and private gardens, boars have become the bête noire of SNCF, the national rail operator, which is teaming up with hunters using heat-seeking drones to deal with the growing problem.

The boars, which can weigh more than a quarter of a ton when fully grown, can cause major damage to trains. SNCF photos show a direct hit can mangle the front of their regional and fast TGVs, posing a serious security threat.