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Expanded recall follows death in car accident

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Recall will now affect a total of 2.5 million cars in

France

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French transport ministry says recall out of precaution

By Gilles Guillaume and Makini Brice

PARIS, June 25 (Reuters) - France is ordering an extra

800,000 cars with Takata airbags to be taken off the road, two

weeks after a woman died in the northeastern town of Reims from

injuries related to a faulty airbag.

The move is the latest twist in the auto industry's

biggest-ever product recall, eight years after the company at

the centre of the crisis - Japan's Takata Corp - filed for

bankruptcy protection in the United States and Japan.

After her 2014 Citroen C3 was hit by a truck, the woman in

Reims died after she was struck by a metal piece expelled by an

airbag that was ejected from her car, the Reims prosecutor's

office said.

Citing the incident, French transport minister Philippe

Tabarot said late Tuesday that all cars with the technology

should be recalled, no matter how old they were.

He also ordered all manufacturers to tell drivers in Corsica

and other overseas departments to stop driving vehicles with the

Takata airbags, whatever their production year, until they are

repaired, and issued the same order for all cars with such

equipment produced until 2011 in mainland France.

The government had previously said vehicles built between

1998 and 2019, from 30 brands, could potentially be recalled.

According to a ministry estimate based on carmaker data, the

expanded recall will bring the total to 2.5 million. Within that

total, the ministry has doubled the number of compulsory recalls

- or so-called "stop drive" orders - to 1.7 million.

French government spokesperson Sophie Primas said on

Wednesday the expanded recall was being undertaken out of an

abundance of caution.

Takata, which was mainly acquired by a Chinese-owned,

U.S.-based company, said at the time of its bankruptcy filing

that it had recalled or expected to recall about 125 million

vehicles worldwide by 2019.

Representatives for Takata's new owner were not immediately

available to comment.