France to step up air, sea search for MH370 wreckage

France will from Friday deploy new air and maritime resources off the remote Indian Ocean island of Reunion in the search for more wreckage from the ill-fated MH370 flight, government officials said.

"It has been decided, at the request of the president and the prime minister and to respond to the needs of the inquiry, to deploy supplementary air and sea resources to search for the possible presence of new debris around Reunion," the ministries of defence, transport and overseas territories said in a statement Thursday.

Malaysia said earlier Thursday that a wing part found on Reunion was from MH370 which went missing in March last year with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.