PARIS, March 25 (AFP) - France continued to face widespread traffic disruption and emergency services remained on alert on Sunday as flooding threatened areas as yet untouched by the rising waters. Roads alongside the Seine in central Paris remained closed as the river rose further, while hundreds of houses and dozens of offices in the city's suburban belt were flooded.

In the northeast department of Eure, the body of a 67-year-old man who had been reported missing during flooding was found by rescue workers on Saturday. However, there was still no sign of another man, aged 59, who disappeared while trying out his windsurfer on the swollen Rhone river on Saturday. Rescue workers in the small town of Lizy-sur-Ourcq northeast of Paris evacuated the weaker residents of an old people's home in fear it could be flooded within hours.

Meanwhile in Brittany, the northwest region that was worst hit by a series of severe floods last autumn, water l evels reached new highs and some inhabitants faced flooding for the third or fourth time in as many months.

Water overflowed at the Vitre dam, near the regional capital Rennes, causing a sharp rise in water levels upstream and flooding in the small town of Chateaubourg. Only in the region around Lyon and along the Rhone river did the situation slowly improve. The area has been extremely hard-hit in recent days, with more than a metre (three feet) of water flooding the centre of several towns such as Chalon-sur-Saone and Macon.