Barcelona, Dec 16 (IANS)

The Barcelona-Paris high-speed train service was officially opened Sunday with the first train leaving Paris at 7:15 a.m., media reported.

The new line, linking the French cities of Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Toulouse to Barcelona in Spain, was inaugurated by Spanish Public Works Minister Ana Maria Pastor Julian and French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier in the city of Perpignan, southern France, according to Xinhua.

This newly operated high-speed train on the Barcelona-Paris line will save passengers' travel time by half, to around six hours.

The line service is well welcomed, given the fact that around 30,000 tickets have been sold since the tickets went on pre-sale Nov 28.

The Spanish rail operator RENFE and French railway networks SNCF expect to sell around 1 million tickets for 2014.