French police on Monday started to evacuate hundreds of eco-activists and anarchists squatting on a site in western France that had been planned as a new airport, and which had sparked clashes with previous governments.

The evacuation started at 0600 Paris time (0400 GMT), the French interior ministry said.

In January, President Emmanuel Macron's government dropped plans for the €580 million airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes in western France, a sensitive decision that past governments had shirked for decades.

Supporters of Notre-Dame-Des-Landes, designed to handle 4 million passengers a year initially, said it would aid economic development in the Loire-Atlantique region.

They argued an old, inner-city airport 30 km to the south was congested and a security risk.

But opponents said it was too costly, environmentally unfriendly and that there was another under-utilised airport 110 km to the north, near Rennes in Brittany.