The Germanwings Airbus passenger jet crashed as it traveled from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, French officials said. Eric Ciotti, the head of the regional council in southeast France, said search-and-rescue teams were headed to the crash site at Meolans-Revels.
In a live briefing Tuesday, Hollande said it was probable that a number of the victims are German. He said the area of the crash was remote and it was not clear whether anyone on the ground had been injured by the crash.
"It's a tragedy on our soil," he said, adding he would be speaking shortly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Germanwings is a lower-cost unit of Lufthansa, Germany's biggest airline, that has been operating since 2002 - part of traditional national carriers' response from rising European budget carriers. It serves mainly European destinations.
The area where the plane went down is near a popular ski resort.
The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation is sending three people to France to join the investigation, spokesman Germout Freitag said.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, the country's top security official, was headed to the crash site.
People waiting for flight 4U 9525 are led away by airport staff at the airport in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, March 24, 2015, after a Germanwings passenger jet carrying more than 140 people crashed in the French Alps region as it traveled from Bar
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