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.

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