A piece of airplane wreckage that washed up on an Indian Ocean island arrived for analysis at a French laboratory Saturday, an AFP journalist saw, after Malaysian authorities said the part almost certainly came from missing flight MH370.

Transported in a convoy of vehicles under police escort, the wing part from a Boeing 777 arrived at about 5.30 pm (1530 GMT) at the defence ministry laboratory specialising in plane crash investigations near Toulouse in southwestern France.

A flight carrying the debris from La Reunion island, where it was found earlier this week, arrived in Paris earlier on Saturday.