France asks for some Citroen cars with faulty airbags to be taken off roads, report says

PARIS (Reuters) -French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot has requested that all Citroen C3 and DS3 vehicles subject to a Takata airbag recall be taken off the roads, French media reported on Tuesday, after reports that a woman died after her airbag was triggered.

The French government has said that vehicles built between 1998 and 2019 are likely to be subject to a recall campaign over faulty airbags, which can explode when they are deployed. The explosion can throw metal fragments and cause serious injury or death.

Representatives for the transport ministry, Citroen parent Stellantis and a local official did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

French media reported that a woman died and a teenager was injured after an airbag deployment earlier this month. Another person died in March after the deployment of a faulty airbag in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, an official said.

Takata Corporation, the company at the centre of the auto industry's biggest-ever product recall, filed for bankruptcy in 2017. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, its U.S. operations said Takata had recalled or expected to recall about 125 million vehicles worldwide by 2019.

(Reporting by Makini Brice in ParisEditing by Matthew Lewis)