The art of Le Parkour

David Belle, acrobatic star of the BBC's new advertising campaign, is the acknowledged guru of a new urban sport in France known as Le Parkour - or obstacle-coursing.

Described by adepts as an art-form or even a philosophy, Le Parkour consists of finding new and often dangerous ways through the city landscape - scaling walls, roof-running and leaping from building to building.

"Le Parkour - or the Art of Movement - is a way of using the obstacles found in one's path to perform jumps and acrobatics.

"Everything must combine speed, fluidity, aesthetics and originality," reads one of several websites dedicated to the sport.

Belle, 28, is credited with having invented Le Parkour as a teenager in the Paris suburbs, along with his friend Sebastien Foucan. Today he is universally recognised as its leading exponent.

The two boys led a gang known as the Yamakasi, who became famous last year when they starred in a film of the same name by director Luc Besson, of Fifth Element fame.

The film is about a group of "Parkouristes" who feel responsible when an inexperienced fan is injured in a fall and set about a spectacular series of robberies to raise money for his operation.