The actor, widely regarded as one of France's most promising cinema talents, who played leading roles in A Very Long Engagement and Hannibal Rising, has died in hospital from serious head injuries sustained after colliding with another skier at the La Rosière resort, in what was the second fatal skiing collision in days in the French Alps.
After Covid-19 restrictions last winter caused a collapse in earnings for French ski resorts, they begin reopening this month for what one official at Val d'Isère said was a 'crucial' season for local businesses.
Simon Butler, 57, was contesting fines of €42,000 (£37,600) in 2013 and 2014 for teaching at his ski school in the resort of Megève despite lacking French certification.
The management of the snow-deprived Luchon-Superbagnères ski resort in the Pyrenees mountains in south-west France this weekend avoided closure of much of the domain by renting a helicopter to bring down around 50 tonnes of fresh snow lying at higher altitude.
Human remains, ski equipment and glasses found in 2005 at an altitude of 3,000 metres in Italy's Aosta region have been found through DNA tests to be that of a Frenchman who disappeared in a storm there in 1954, after his family answered an appeal for information launched on social media by Italian police.
Skiers stranded for hours on broken-down gondolas at the at the Chamrousse resort resort in the French Alps, swaying in the wind at heights of up to 25 metres above ground, were rescued after helicopters dropped rescuers who winched the passengers safely to ground.
