Hundreds French Airbus staff fall ill after Christmas dinner

PARIS - More than 700 staff working for Airbus Atlantic in France have fallen ill since their annual company Christmas dinner, health authorities said Friday.

Airbus Atlantic, a subsidiary of aerospace group Airbus, employs 15,000 people in five countries.

Staff at the company's western French site who attended the dinner event showed "clinical signs of vomiting or diarrhoea", the ARS health agency said.

It did not say what was on the menu at the dinner that took place last week.

An investigation was being launched to find the source of the mass food poisoning, it told AFP.

The Airbus group, a European consortium, is the world's largest aircraft maker ahead of Boeing.

It employs 134,000 people.