High-speed trains give way to cut-rate buses in France

Paris

IT'S 8am at the height of vacation season in a parking lot on the western edge of Paris. A few hundred people are dragging around luggage as they hunt for the coaches that would take them to Toulouse, Biarritz, Amsterdam and beyond.

Bus travel in the country that popularised high-speed trains is booming, with almost four million passengers transported in the past 12 months and companies expecting the number to double in the next year.