Paris  - Snow covered the northern half of France early Monday, leading to long traffic bottlenecks in and around Paris and flight cancellations at the capital's airports.

The hazardous conditions caused traffic jams of more than 225 kilometres on motorways into Paris and slowed traffic to a crawl in the city itself.

Bus traffic in some Paris suburbs was reported at a standstill because of the snowfall, which totalled up to 5 centimetres in some locations.

BFM television reported that 15 to 25 per cent of scheduled short-and medium-haul flights were cancelled at the city's two main airports, which also reported average delays of about 30 minutes.

As temperatures rose above freezing, the snow turned into freezing rain, making driving conditions more hazardous.

The national weather service Meteo-France placed more than 30 northern departements, including the greater Paris area, under a hazardous driving alert because of the frozen roadways. (dpa)