Authorities in France on Monday accused a private retirement home of breaking the law by throwing a 94-year-old woman out and leaving her at an emergency room after her family missed payments.

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"A vulnerable person was expelled... on the eve of a weekend during the winter," the minister for the elderly, Michele Delaunay, told AFP after details of the incident emerged.

Delaunay called the move "a violation of the law and human dignity", noting that the retirement home was the woman's legal residence.    

Workers at the retirement home in the Parisian suburb of Chaville took the woman to her son's residence on Friday after she was expelled because the family was €40,000  ($52,000) behind on payments.

Finding no one at home, they left her in the emergency room at a local hospital instead.

Management at the Villa Bonsoleil home said it regretted the decision, but noted that family members had been repeatedly contacted about the failure to make payments.

"We wanted to accompany this woman back to her family. Finding the door closed, we should have brought her back to us and not left her in a hospital. It was a clumsy decision that I regret," the co-chairman of the retirement home, Richard Claverie, told AFP.

The woman was expected to return on Monday to the retirement home, where she has lived for nearly two years.