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French Alps the sole candidate for 2030 Winter Olympics

The French Alps are the sole candidate to host the 2030 Winter Olympics, sources close to negotiations with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said to AFP on Wednesday.

Published: 29 November 2023 18:03 CET
French Alps the sole candidate for 2030 Winter Olympics
The delegation from France takes part in the parade of athletes, during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. (Photo by Ben STANSALL / AFP)

The French bid now moves to targeted dialogue with the IOC, at the expense of the two other candidates, Sweden and Switzerland.

The hosts for both the 2030 and 2034 Winter Olympics will be announced next summer.

Only Salt Lake City in the United States has launched a bid to host the 2034 Games.

France, which welcomes the Summer Olympics in 2024, has hosted the Winter Games three times: Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville in 1992.

The bid for the 2030 Games is based around Meribel, Courchevel and Val d’Isere for alpine skiing while La Clusaz would host nordic events. The Olympic village would be in the Mediterranean city of Nice, which would host skating events.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Ryanair says it will close its Bordeaux base

Low-cost airline Irish Ryanair announced on Tuesday it would close its base of operations in the French city of Bordeaux following a failure to find an agreement with the airport about fees.

Published: 14 May 2024 19:25 CEST
Ryanair says it will close its Bordeaux base

“Due to increased costs we don’t have any financial alternative but to close our Bordeaux base in November,” the company’s commercial director Jason McGuinness said in a statement released in French.

The airline has been operating around 40 flights to and from Bordeaux.

In the statement it said the three planes and 90 staff currently based at the Bordeaux airport would be transferred to other, less costly, bases within its network.

READ ALSO Are France’s loss-making regional airports under threat?

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said in March that Bordeaux airport was seeking to double its fees and warned he would shut the base rather than pay that amount.

Bordeaux-Merignac airport said it had “put limits on the financial demands” of Ryanair and would pursue its strategic objective of diversifying the airlines which use airport.

“We don’t wish to see a company which has been installed in Bordeaux for 14 years leave,” the airport told AFP.

“If it would like to work again in Bordeaux, it will be welcome,” it added.

Bordeaux-Merignac in 2023 was the eighth busiest French airport with 6.6 million passengers.

However, this figure is just 85.5 percent of pre-Covid 2019 levels whereas the average for French airports was 92.7 percent.

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