Val Thorens, Europe’s highest winter sport resort at 2,300 metres (7,500 feet) and hugely popular with Britons, was the first of France’s Alpine resorts allowing skiers back on the lifts and slopes on Saturday.

Others will follow over the coming weeks.

“Amazing, we’re the first,” said one skier testing the slopes with a group of friends. “It’s a bit cold, but we’ll be fine,” the skier added.

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Some 10,000 people descended on the station on Saturday, local media reported, with the snow in good shape and favourable weather.

France’s resorts are the world’s third-most popular skiing spots in the world, after those in the United States and in Austria, and an economic lifeline for many regions.

“This year will be important for us, crucial even,” said Olivier Simonin, in charge of ski lifts in Val d’Isere which is to open next Saturday.

“Our future is at stake and we can’t imagine not having a winter season, so we did everything possible to make sure we’d have one,” he told AFP.

Last winter, Alpine skiing was almost impossible in France as ski lifts were shut to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Hotels were allowed to open and other winter activities such as snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing were authorised, but the lack of downhill skiing caused a collapse in income.

“We’re so happy to be able to restart the ski lifts and get back to doing our jobs at 100 percent,” Val Thorens ski patrol member Emmanuel Laissus told AFP.

Franck Feyeux, a cabin lift driver, added: “We’ve been impatient for customers to return, a lot of people’s livelihoods are at stake.”

The tiny station of Porte-Puymorens, meanwhile, was the first resort in the southwestern Pyrenees to reopen, with others in the region to follow suit by early December.

“Demand is incredible,” Porte-Puymorens resort director Eric Charre told AFP. “The economic engine is restarting.”

Covid-related demands on skiers are relatively light at the resorts, with mask-wearing required in queues and on board ski gondolas.

But the government has already warned that it could tighten the rules, notably by introducing a health pass obligation, if Covid cases rise strongly.

The health pass, required in French restaurants, cafes and many cultural venues, certifies that a person is fully vaccinated, has recently recovered from Covid, or has tested negative for the virus.

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