He has admitted to being tempted into the Ireland role, in part, by the carrot of a less hectic pace of life, so it was ironic yesterday to hear Joe Schmidt talk about being whisked through the suburban traffic of Paris on a motorbike at 140kph.

Hundreds of thousands of air passengers are stranded at airports across Europe this morning as snow grounds flights.

Air traffic controllers at Paris’s second-largest airport began a strike today, forcing the cancellation of nearly 60% of flights.

A strike by air traffic controllers is expected to cause severe disruptions all this week at Orly airport in Paris.