PARIS (Reuters) - France on Tuesday ordered chickens, geese and ducks farmed in more than one fifth of the country to be kept inside over concerns that migratory wildfowl could spread the deadly Asian strain of bird flu to the country. 

Amid signs that H5N1 avian influenza, essentially a poultry virus which can be fatal to humans, could soon spread across Europe, France also said that markets, fairs and displays featuring wild birds would be suspended across the country. 

Farm Minister Dominique Bussereau said the ban on outside poultry would apply in those departments where domestic birds were at risk of coming into contact with migratory fowl, believed to be the main carriers of the virus. 

In the rest of the country, poultry must not be fed outside. 

While noting the national food safety agency AFSSA had evaluated the risk of bird flu infection in domestic poultry as negligible, he said the government had decided to take measures similar to those adopted in other European Union countries such as Germany,     the    Netherlands,

Poland and Austria. 

"Out of the principle of precaution, we want to go beyond the advice of AFSSA," he told a news conference to announce the measures, which will run until Dec. 1. 

"In those departments which present a particular risk of contact with migratory birds, the measures consist of a confinement of open-air breeding concerning domestic, wild or pet birds," the Farm Ministry said. 

It listed 21 departments, out of a total of 96 in France, that had a particular risk of contact, mostly areas along the Atlantic coast and in the east of the country. 

These matched two major routes used by birds migrating to winter destinations, Environment Minister Nelly Olin said. 

FREE-RANGE STATUS 

Bussereau also said he would seek a temporary change in rules governing free-range poultry so that farmers could keep any existing quality labels for their produce. 

He said there were some 30,000 poultry farms in France, of which 42 percent reared birds in the open air, accounting for 17.5 percent of the total amount of poultry slaughtered. 

He said the label exemption would avoid what could have been "an economic catastrophe" for the industry. 

France's main FNSEA farm union said the measures were necessary and would help in the fight against bird flu, although they could be difficult to implement and it was essential farmers were reimbursed for any costs. 

Bussereau said France would ask EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel for EU funds to co-finance information costs associated with the confinement measure. 

The ministry also said if it was not possible to confine poultry, for example due to a lack of available buidlings, "equivalent protective measures as well as

reinforced surveillance" had to be put in place. 

Authorities in departments not considered at risk could ask for a special exemption to the suspension of displays of live animals at markets and fairs. 

The EU on Tuesday banned imports of wild birds and certain poultry products from Croatia. It was also poised to ban all imports of captive wild birds after a parrot died of the H5N1 strain in Britain.