Vets have identified a suspected outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in a herd of 113 cows on a dairy farm in northwest France, an official at the local government office said yesterday.
He said six of the cattle were discovered with symptoms of the highly infectious disease during the afternoon and were immediately slaughtered. The rest of the herd will be killed during the night as a precautionary measure.
"We are talking about quite a serious suspicion. The six animals had lesions on their mouths and hooves," said the government spokesman in Laval in the Loire region.
Tests were being carried out and the first results were expected today.
There have been no confirmed cases of the disease so far in continental Europe as governments introduce draconian measures to keep the illness at bay.
France reported several suspected cases of the disease in the wake of the British outbreak, but so far they have all turned out to be false alarms.
The latest suspected cases were discovered at a farm near the village of La Baroche-Gondouin, on the borders of the Loire and Normandy - an area which had been put on high alert against foot-and-mouth for the past few weeks.
The government has set up a "mini-crisis centre" at the scene, the Laval spokesman said.
France earlier this month ordered the destruction of 20,000 sheep imported from Britain after February 1st and 30,000 French sheep that had contact with them as a precautionary strike against possible carriers of the disease.
The country also slapped a two-week ban on the export of all animals at risk from the disease, along with a ban on most movements of livestock out of fear that the contagion may have spread from Britain.