Busy travel day as holidays finish

UP to 350km of queuing traffic is expected on the French motorway network this afternoon as drivers put off their return from the Christmas holidays to the last minute.

Traffic monitor Bison Futé has issued an "orange" alert for the whole country and is expecting the bulk of the delays between 15.00 and 19.00.

Yesterday was relatively quiet on the roads, with a "green" level and only minor delays on some of the main north-south routes.

The SNCF is expecting to carry five million passengers today, of whom 3.8 million will pass through Paris.

Aéroports de Paris, which runs the two main airports in the French capital at Orly and Charles de Gaulle, says it has dealt with seven million passengers over the Christmas fortnight.

Festive traffic numbers at the two airports have risen by 20 per cent in the past decade, the operator says.

Meanwhile there is a pollution in the Arve valley due to high numbers of drivers travelling to and from Chamonix ski resort and using the Mont-Blanc tunnel link with Italy.

The Haute-Savoie préfecture has renewed its warning today for high levels of PM10 particles, which are a risk for people with breathing difficulties. The legal threshold is 50 microgrammes - on Friday the level hit 90.