A French chocolatier has created a ten-metre-high chocolate Christmas tree in his laboratory in Paris.

Patrick Roger’s creation will be used to raise funds for a television charity event to support research into neuromuscular diseases.

The tree, which is currently towering inside the chocolatier’s factory in Sceaux, weighs four tonnes and according to Mr Roger’s is a piece of “architecture”.

He said: “To achieve this kind of architecture – because this really is a piece of architecture – we used a sort of cavity inside to make the chocolate solid enough, because there is very strong vertical pressure.”