France raises bird flu alert to high, orders indoor poultry housing

France raised its national bird flu alert to the highest level on Wednesday and ordered poultry to be kept indoors after a recent spike in outbreaks and detections in wild birds, officials said. The agriculture ministry published a decree Tuesday requiring birds to be sheltered and imposing tighter biosecurity and surveillance measures nationwide as authorities seek to limit transmission from migratory wild birds to domestic flocks.

The move upgrades the threat level from moderate to high under France's three-tier system and follows five confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in the past ten days, officials said. Two of those were on commercial farms and three involved smaller backyard holdings. Under the high-risk designation, birds must be confined or protected by netting; larger farms with more than 50 birds must cover feeding and watering systems to reduce contamination from wild species. Authorities said the earlier-than-usual activation, typically seen in November or December, reflects the dynamic spread of the virus along migratory flyways crossing French territory.

France began vaccinating some farm birds two years ago and has adjusted confinement rules in...