Dickon Hooper
BBC West

President of the court is Didier Safar.

We have been told the list of witnesses.

As one journalist has just said to me, "it’s an impressive list".

Steve Knibbs
BBC West

All of the photographers and TV crews have now left the courtroom.

Despite being able to film Monique Olivier and the judges arriving, we won't be able to show you any of the proceedings.

The lawyers are now explaining - and putting on the record - who they represent. It’s part of the French legal system in this kind of case.

The victims’ families have legal representation.

They’re known as "civil parties" in the proceedings.

Dickon Hooper
BBC West

Monique Olivier has given her name and date of birth and confirmed her previous convictions.

Six jurors have been selected and five more will be chosen as spares.

This is the moment Monique Olivier walked into court - with photographers and camera crews picturing the moment.

This is a big moment.

Monique Olivier has just walked into the dock and is being filmed by dozens of TV camera crews and photographers.

She has agreed to be filmed at the start of the trial. She's wearing a white sweatshirt.

The judges are now walking in and taking their seats.

All of this is being filmed - this doesn't happen in UK courts. It's an extraordinary process to witness.

We'll get a picture of her to you as soon as we can.

Steve Knibbs
BBC West

This trial is expected to last three weeks.

Today the jury will be chosen and then the list of witnesses called for the trial will be read out. The President of the Cour d'Assise will then address the court.

The schedule talks about about an "interrogation of Monique Olivier's personality" this afternoon. We're still waiting to find out if she's agreed to be filmed by the press.

My colleague, Dickon Hooper, is in the court with our camera crew, Mark Leach, in this press scrum outside. I'm downstairs in the press room where a feed of the trial will be played out for journalists.

Monique Olivier, 75, was married to convicted serial killer Michel Fourniret.

Her ex-husband was convicted to a life sentence for murdering eight girls and young women between 1987 and 2001.

Fourniret died in 2021 before he could stand trial.

Olivier is serving a life sentence for complicity in four murders and a gang rape committed by Fourniret.

She is about to go on trial for being an accomplice in three further murders, including that of Joanna.

Image source, Getty Images

The next few next weeks will see Roger Parrish and Pauline Murrell give evidence in the trial.

Her parents and other members of her family will travel to France for the trial which is expected to last for a month.

Steve Knibbs
BBC West

Good morning from the Cour d'Assise in Paris where the trial of Monique Olivier, who is accused in complicity of the murder of Gloucestershire student, Joanna Parrish, is about to start.

Joanna was murdered in May 1990 in Auxerre by the prolific French serial killer, Michel Fourniret. He confessed in 2018 but died in 2021.

His former wife, Monique Olivier, is accused of helping him in the murder and that of two other victims, Marie-Angele Domece and Estelle Mouzin.

Dickon Hooper
BBC West

We are under way in court with the jury about to be chosen.

There are strange scenes for a British journalist with cameras in the court filming lawyers and one victim’s family.

The courtroom is packed with lawyers, press, an artist with his oil paints and families watching on.

Dubbed the "Ogre of the Ardennes", Michel Fourniret, murdered at least eight girls or young women between 1987 and 2001 in northern France and in Belgium.

He was convicted of seven of the killings in the 2008 trial, and in 2018 was also found guilty of murdering Farida Hammiche, companion of a bank robber Fourniret had met in prison.

Later in 2018, he confessed to the murders of Ms Domèce, a disabled woman from Auxerre, and Ms Parrish.

Fourniret died aged 79 in the secure unit of a hospital in Paris in 2021.

There is considerable interest in the case in France.

Here's the queue of journalists who were waiting to get in earlier.

• Joanna Parrish was from Newnham-on-Severn in Gloucestershire
• She was a trainee teacher in a school Burgundy, France
• Joanna was killed whilst on a university placement in France in May 1990, aged 20-years-old having been raped and strangled
• Ms Parrish's body was found in a river in Auxerre on 17 May, 1990

Image source, Family Photograph

Good morning.

Welcome to live coverage of the trial of the ex-wife of a French serial killer who is accused of helping him murder Joanna Parrish from the Forest of Dean in 1990.

She was aged 20 when her body was found in a river.

Michel Fourniret confessed to killing Joanna Parrish in 2018, but he died two years ago.

Today, in Paris, his former wife, Monique Olivier, who is already serving a life sentence for complicity in Fourniret’s murders, will stand trial for her alleged role in Joanna’s murder - as well as another murder and a kidnap.

Our reporters Steve Knibbs and Dickon Hooper are in court in France.