A 27-year-old man with a disfiguring disease has become the second person to have a partial face transplant in France in just over a year.

A team of doctors in Val-de-Marne near Paris carried out the 15-hour operation on Sunday, Le Parisien daily reported.

No one was immediately available for comment at the hospital.

The man, who was not named, suffered from von Recklinghausen disease, an illness that deforms the face.

He was given a new nose, face and chin.

The operation was similar to the one carried out on Isabelle Dinoire, a French women who underwent the world's first partial face transplant in November 2005 after she was disfigured in an attack by her own dog.

In April last year, Chinese doctors said they had also performed a partial face transplant on a 30-year-old who was attacked by a bear.