Free travel for girl born on TGV

THE SNCF has offered free rail travel for 18 years to a baby girl who was born on board a high-speed train.

A 22-year-old Russian tourist gave birth to Amina, weighing seven pounds and six ounces (3.3kg), shortly after she boarded a TGV from Bordeaux to Paris.

A doctor and two nurses travelling on the same train delivered the baby while the train slowed down for an unexpected stop at Coutras, in the Gironde, where pompiers came on board to help remove the umbilical cord and take the mother and baby to hospital.

One of the nurses on the train told reporters: "The baby girl was tired but in good health, and so is her mother. The only difficulty was communicating - the mother only spoke Russian and did not understand French."

Train conductor Dominique Chanrion told Europe 1: "There's not a lot of free space on a TGV. Passengers agreed to move elsewhere, but there were not enough spare seats for the whole carriage, so there were a few passengers who witnessed it."