It will be delivered to a military unit near the southwest city of Toulouse which specializes in analyzing aviation wreckage.
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Australian Transport and Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss said he remained confident the hunt for MH370 was being conducted in the right area, with wreckage on Reunion Island consistent with currents from the zone team is scouring.
An Australian-led search has spent 16 months combing the southern Indian Ocean for the aircraft, which is known to have inexplicably veered off-course.
“There’s limits to how much you can determine from just one piece of debris and we don’t think it would give us sufficient reliability to speculate too much about the rest of the debris“, he added.
Because Reunion Island is French territory, the debris was flown to France, and will be handed to the aviation safety bureau BEA, according to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
The mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 might be a step closer to being solved after a water bottle and cleaning products have been found washed up on an island in the Indian Ocean.
Australia continues to shoulder most of the cost of searching for the vanished passenger jet, though China – which had 153 nationals aboard – is yet to contribute financially to the underwater search.
Abdul Aziz said the most definitive confirmation of the part’s origin would have to come from Boeing, saying the aircraft manufacturer performed modifications to the flaperon that would make it easy to identify.
A preliminary assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies, suggests someone in the cockpit deliberately caused the aircraft’s movements before the Malaysian airliner disappeared.
If investigators can confirm that the flaperon comes from the MH370, the laboratory can use sophisticated equipment to try and find out what happened – for example, whether it points to a mid-air explosion or a crash into the ocean.
A picture made available July 30, 2015 shows officers carrying pieces of debris from an unidentified aircraft apparently washed ashore in Saint-Andre de la Reunion, eastern La Reunion island, France, July 29.
The centre in Toulouse was also involved in analysing debris from the Air France flight AF447 which crashed on a flight from Brazil to Paris in 2009, killing 228 people.
Ms Bishop said the families of the 239 missing passengers – including six Australians – deserve answers.
“Thanks to this piece (of wreckage) we will be able to say virtually with certainty “there was no explosion”, or “there was no fire”.
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However, he also said the discovery of debris might not help pinpoint where the plane went down.
