CANNES - The French threw the world a film party and then ate the cherry on top of the dessert.

Dheepan - about a Tamil Tiger who quits the Sri Lankan revolution, creates a makeshift "family" with two other refugees, and flees to Paris, where he lands a job as a building superintendent in the lawless suburbs - took the Palme D'Or, the Golden Palm, at the 68th Cannes Film Festival Sunday night.

The film by Jacques Audiard, whose jailhouse story A Prophet won second prize in 2009, was one of a huge contingent French films figuring prominently in the competition for the top prize (and in other sections at well).