Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0also known as\u00a0Roissy\u00a0Airport\u00a0\u00a0in\u00a0Paris, is one of Europe\u2019s principal aviation centers, as well as\u00a0France\u2019s main international airport. It is named after Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), leader of the Free France and founder of the\u00a0French\u00a0Fifth\u00a0Republic. It is located near Roissy, 25 km to the north-east of\u00a0Paris. The construction of\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0lasted about 10 years.<\/p>\n
In 2004,\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0ranked second in Europe in terms of passenger traffic with 51,260,363 passengers, behind\u00a0London\u00a0HeathrowAirport(67,344,054), and just above\u00a0Frankfurt\u00a0International\u00a0Airport(51,098,271). In terms of plane movements\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0was number one in Europe with 525,660 planes, above\u00a0Frankfurt\u00a0International\u00a0Airport\u00a0(477,475) and Heathrow (475,999). In terms of cargo traffic,\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0was also number one in Europe in 2004 with 1,876,900 metric tonnes (2,068,928 US tons), above Frankfurt (1,838,894 metric tonnes) and Heathrow (1,412,033 metric tonnes).<\/p>\n
Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0is connected to the RER urban rail network, providing service into downtown\u00a0Paris\u00a0three or four times per hour, and the high-speed rail TGV network.<\/p>\n
After seven years of planning and construction,\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0began service on March 8, 1974. Terminal one was built to an avant-garde design consisting of a ten-floor high circular building surrounded by seven satellite buildings each with four gates. The main architect was Paul Andreu, who was also in charge of the extensions during the following decades.<\/p>\n
On August 26, 1998, Merhan Kairmi Nasseri found himself held at\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0by immigration. He claimed he was a refugee, but had had his refugee papers stolen. After years of bureaucratic wrangling, it was concluded that Nasseri had entered the airport legally and could not be expelled from its walls; but since he had no papers, there was no country to deport him to either, leaving him in residential limbo. Nasseri has continued to live within the confines of the airport to this day, even though French authorities have since made it possible for him to leave if he so chooses.<\/p>\n
The grassy lands on which\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0is located are notorious for hosting a large population of rabbits and hares, which can clearly be seen by aeroplane passengers at certain times of the day.\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0organizes periodic hunts and captures to keep the population to manageable levels.<\/p>\n
On November 7, 2005, French law number 05-4979 was published, relating specifically to Charles de Gaulle airport. The law prohibits photographs being taken for private use of anything moving (e.g. aircraft) or not moving (e.g. buildings) within the \u201czone reserv\u03b9e\u201d \u2013 the restricted area \u2013 from the \u201czone publique\u201d \u2013 the public area. It is not clear whether the public area refers to all areas from which the airport is visible, or only to areas within the grounds of\u00a0Charles de Gaulle International Airport. The law is much to the consternation of plane spotters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charles de Gaulle International Airport\u00a0also known as\u00a0Roissy\u00a0Airport\u00a0\u00a0in\u00a0Paris, is one of Europe\u2019s principal aviation centers, as well as\u00a0France\u2019s main international airport. It is named after Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), leader of the Free France and founder of the\u00a0French\u00a0Fifth\u00a0Republic. It is located…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airports-in-europe"],"_aioseop_title":"","_aioseop_description":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}