About fifty passengers on a low-cost Ryanair flight to France have been stranded since Monday evening at Marrakech airport, "in a desperate and scandalous situation," one of the passengers told AFP.

"After several hours of waiting and false starts, the crew made us get off the plane with our luggage, and the aircraft took off without any passengers for Spain. The captain told us to wait for the next Ryanair flight on Monday or to fend for ourselves," indicated Yasmine Lienard, a French passenger.

"The flight with some 200 passengers, mostly French, was scheduled for Monday at 16:35 GMT," she specified.

A strike by air traffic control staff at Orly airport caused several flight cancellations from Morocco.

"There are cancellations on other flights from Marrakech, but low-cost companies are refunding tickets, not Ryanair, which has done nothing," she said.

"We found ourselves alone in the middle of the night, without anyone to talk to, with nothing. There is an elderly man who is sick among the passengers. Some are trying to leave on other flights by buying a new ticket, others do not know what to do," she added.

"It is a scandalous and perfectly inhumane situation. We want to file a complaint. We contacted the French consulate in Marrakech, which hung up on us. The airport authorities are not taking care of us (...) We were entitled to two blankets for the night. Everyone is passing the buck," she denounced.

Ms. Lienard, a psychiatrist in Paris, says she stayed with her partner at the airport "in solidarity with about fifty other destitute passengers." "Those who have a little money have gone elsewhere. Everyone is fending for themselves."