The poll, conducted on February 2 and 3 and published by Direct Matin, a free daily newspaper, put approval for a 2024 bid by the French capital at 73 per cent.

Pollsters the CSA Institute found that Parisians were marginally more favourable to the idea than the French as a whole, with support in the city put at 76 per cent of those questioned.

The proportion of backers rose to 88 per cent among those aged 18-24, while dropping to 61 per cent among over-65s.

While it will be interesting to see if future surveys confirm these findings, the result will encourage sports leaders ahead of what looks set to be a period of intense political debate on whether Paris should join Boston and Rome on the starting-line for an event that the City of Light last hosted in 1924.

Since then French bids for the Summer Olympics and Paralympics have suffered a series of disappointments, notably in 2005 when Paris lost out to London in the race for the 2012 Games, in spite of being firm favourite virtually throughout the contest.

Paris is set to join Rome and Boston as candidate cities for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games if the city's Mayor Anne Hidalgo can be persuaded to support it ©Getty Images



While this week's study, due to be delivered tomorrow, is expected to confirm that a bid is technically feasible, Hidalgo for one has, until now, appeared sceptical about its potential benefits.

No final decision is expected until June, by which time Hamburg or Berlin, and possibly others, may have joined the race.

The International Olympic Committee will choose the host-city at its 2017 Session in the Peruvian capital of Lima.

The sample size of this week's poll was put at 1,000 individuals who were contacted by telephone.

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