German Chancellor Angela Merkel is "shocked" about the crash of a German airliner in the French Alps Tuesday with all 148 people on board believed dead, her spokesman said.
The German leader spoke to French President Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy by telephone and "cancelled her appointments to follow developments", the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement.
The plane was travelling from the Spanish coastal city of Barcelona to the German city of Duesseldorf when it went down in the Barcelonnette area, in southeastern France.