SOLEIL SOLEIL SOLEIL ("Sun" in French) is a synchrotron facility near Paris, France. It performed its first acceleration of electrons on May 14, 2006. The name "SOLEIL" is a backronym for "Source optimisée de lumière d’énergie intermédiaire du LURE" (LURE optimised intermediary energy light source), LURE meaning "Laboratoire pour l'utilisation du rayonnement électromagnétique". The facility is run by a civil corporation held by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), two French national research agencies. It is located in Saint-Aubin in the Essonne département, a south-western suburb of Paris, near
Portes du Soleil Portes du Soleil Les Portes du Soleil (literally "The Doors of the Sun") is a major skisports destination in the Alps, encompassing thirteen resorts between Mont Blanc in France and Lake Geneva in Switzerland. With more than 650 km of marked pistes (claimed by the lift companies; an independent expert measured about 426 km ) and about 200 lifts in total, spread over 14 valleys and about , Portes du Soleil ranks among the two largest ski areas in the world (the other being Les Trois Vallées). Almost all of the pistes are connected by lifts – a few marginal