According to a poll published Tuesday for newspaper Direct Matin, 73% of French people would like to see the Olympic Games return to Paris for the third time.
According to the poll there was greater enthusiasm for a 2024 Games in Paris among 16 to 24-year-olds (88 per cent) than those over 65 (61 per cent) but it also showed that support is less solid compared to a similar poll conducted in 2005. In that survey 81 per cent of respondents backed Paris’ attempt to hold the 2012 Games, but it lost its bid to London.
Paris hosted the Games in 1900 and 1924.
The results appear two days before the French Committee for International Sport delivers its feasibility study on Paris staging the Games in 2024.
This will be welcome news to the International Olympic Committee who recently witnessed four European bids lose support and drop their campaigns for the 2022 Winter Games. Recently approved Agenda 2020 reforms were seen as a way to reverse the trend.
A final decision on whether Paris will bid is expected by June.
Cities must apply to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by September 15 and will have until January 8, 2016 to place guarantees. A short list will be chosen by the IOC in May 2016 and a final decision on the bid city will be announced in Lima Peru in mid 2017.
