Emmanuel Macron travel tips

Most mornings, around 6:30, Tharshan Selvarajah arrives at the Élysée Palace, seat of the French presidency, and unloads around 30 baguettes into the security scanner.

There are many reasons to head to France in 2024—the Olympic Games in Paris, the Euro 2024 football competition or an Impressionist festival—but many will be heading to Normandy to commemorate the 160,000 Allied troops who landed on its beaches in World War Two in the biggest military seaborne invasion in history.

Following on from the success of Germany’s Deutschlandticket, France is set to launch its own version this summer.

One of France's most popular tourist attractions is slowly being brought back to life following a devastating fire.

The ground-breaking opening ceremony planned for this summer’s Paris Olympics on the Seine River has been scaled back once again, with the previously announced 600,000 free tickets available to the general public, now being cut in half to about 300,000 by invite-only. Though tickets for the momentous July 26 event were initially intended for the general public through an open registration, the nation’s Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced last week that 104,000 seats on the lower riverbank will be paid tickets, while 222,000 upper banks seats will remain free, but distributed via a quota system, The Associated Press reported.  “To manage crowd movement, we can’t tell everyone to come,” Darmanin said. “For security reasons that everyone understands, notably the terrorist threat of recent weeks, we are obliged to make it free but contained.” No specific plots have been identified, but there are certainly heightened threats, he noted.

With an opening ceremony planned to take place along the river Seine, it's clear that Paris' summer Olympic Games will be a delight, but it is the rebirth of the cathedral of Notre-Dame that might just be the real scene stealer of the tourist year.

A marked rebound after being hard-hit by the health crisis, confirming the resilience of the destination, which meets the current trends and expectations of travellers looking to unwind and recharge while enjoying authentic and memorable experiences.

New plans to simplify travel for French school parties to the UK were unveiled on Thursday after the number of trips plummeted following Brexit.

France’s Notre Dame Cathedral is expected to reopen for visitors and Catholic masses at the end of 2024.

In a high-profile showdown, Rome, Busan and Riyadh are the top contenders to become the host city of the 2030 World Expo, with the organizing body choosing the winner on Tuesday.

French citizens can now apply for a four-year US visa under a new reciprocal deal.

France could well be the perfect place to track the progress of the main battle over the future of travel: trains versus planes. In May 2021, France positioned itself as the frontrunner in a carbon-cutting train renaissance when its government enacted a ban on domestic flights where the journey could be done by train in less than two and a half hours. “We are the first to do it,” Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter, and it was hailed by minister Clément Beaune as a “powerful message” and a “strong symbol”. The European Commission designated 2021 as the “Year of European Rail” and billions of euros have since poured into railway infrastructure across central and eastern Europe.

Europe is a hive of strike action right now, with many employees unhappy that sky-high inflation has not been matched by higher wages.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday unveiled plans for a high-speed train route connecting their respective capitals, Paris and Berlin, beginning next year.

France’s Accor is to work with Jin Jiang International Hotels on developing sustainable practices that cover construction, operations and even financing.

European planemaker Airbus is negotiating a new round of plane orders with China, coinciding with a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the economic superpower later this week, government and industry sources said.

French overseas territory Martinique has seen a huge spike in COVID-19 cases recently, overwhelming the island’s hospitals. This rising infection rate has caused the popular vacation destination to go into a strict three-week lockdown. The Martinique government has also asked all tourists to leave the territory immediately.