The French food safety agency AFSSA warned of a heightened risk of the deadly bird flu virus reaching the country, and called for poultry to be kept indoors wherever possible. The government is expected to announce on Wednesday extra safety measures based on AFSSA's recommendation, after Austria became the latest European country to report the presence of the deadly H5N1 virus.
France is Europe's biggest poultry producer, with free-range birds accounting for 17 percent of its production -- as well as western Europe's main crossroads for migratory birds, potential carriers of the virus.
According to a member of the AFSSA expert panel, it is only a matter of time before bird flu arrives in France.
"We have absolutely no control over the introduction of the virus by migratory birds that are about to start returning from Africa to Siberia, Scandinavia and Greenland. It is unavoidable," Jean Hars told AFP.
"All migratory species either fly over or stop in France," he added, warning that the deadly virus could be carried by pigeons, sparrows or birds of prey as well as by geese and ducks.
AFSSA warned that "French birds now face a heightened risk of contamination," following the appearance of the virus in Nigeria, and the discovery of infected swans notably in Greece and Italy.
The southwestern and western Atlantic coast were at particular risk, AFSSA said, and poultry farmers in those areas were advised to carry out preventive vaccination for any birds left outdoors.
The French agriculture ministry has already ordered free-range birds in more than half of its 96 mainland departments to be kept in shelters to reduce the risk of them catching the deadly H5N1 virus from wild birds.
Live birds have also been banned from all markets and trade fairs, including at a huge annual agricultural fair in Paris at the end of this month.
Austria reported its first confirmed cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus on Tuesday.
The virus, which has killed around 90 people in Asia, Turkey and northern Iraq, has already been detected in wild swans in France's neighbor, Italy, as well as in Greece, Bulgaria and Slovenia.
