Fresh snowfall and frost
forecast are likely to hamper air and railway traffic in France, Europe’ s
main tourists destination, few days before the Christmas holidays.

According to Meteo France, the country’ s weather agency, 16 departments in
the northern and eastern areas were put under orange alert on predicted heavy
snowfall and freezing temperatures till Friday.

The agency estimated that the biggest snowfall will be up to 15
centimeters, with risks of ice to damage the electricity grid and telephone
networks.

On the website of Paris airports, the French Civil Aviation Authority
called flag carriers to cancel 20 percent of their flights in the Roissy-Charles
de Gaulle for whole Thursday and Orly until 13:00 local time.

The country’ s railway company SNCF said the railway traffic remained
disrupted in parts of France, mainly in North and East regions. The speed
limit of high-speed trains TGV headed to the east of Europe, north and
Atlantic was restricted, causing delays of up to 40 minutes.

France’s key airliner, Air France, said costs of air traffic disruption due
to bad weather stood between 25 and 35 million euros (32.74 and 45.84 million
U.S. dollars).

To Nicolas Paulissen, general director of the National Federation of Road
Transport, the loss was high up to 150 million euros (196.49 million U.S.
dollars), possibly to exceed the loss in strikes of last October.

“The cost of bad weather is between 100 and 150 million euros (130.99 and
196.49 million U.S. dollars). At the end of October, after the strikes, we
evaluated damage of 120 million euros (157.16 million U.S. dollars),”
Paulissen told local radio channel Europe 1.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet