A ferry with more than 300 people on board ran aground in high winds in Calais in northern France on Sunday, interrupting traffic in one of Europe's busiest passenger ports but causing no injuries, a local official and the shipping company told AFP.

"The vessel is stable. Port officers are looking at how to refloat it," an official in the local administration told AFP, without giving his name. 

A spokesman for the P&O shipping company said the ferry, The Pride of Kent, ran aground after it hit a gangway while manoeuvering to leave the port for Dover, its destination in Britain.