Eiffage consortium wins Paris metro expansion contract - Les Echos

PARIS (Reuters) - A consortium led by French construction group Eiffage has won one of the largest contracts, worth about 1.7 billion euros (£1.5 billion), in the planned expansion of the Paris metro network, business daily Les Echos reported on Tuesday.

Eiffage and partners including construction firm Razel-Bec won the bid to build the first section of the future Line 16 of the Grand Paris metro, beating out a rival consortium led by Bouygues and Vinci, the paper said.

A spokesman for Eiffage was not immediately available to comment.

The Grand Paris Express project aims to better link Paris' suburbs to the city proper with 200 km (124 miles) of new metro lines.

France's independent auditing body, the Cour des Comptes, said on Tuesday the expansion risked "considerable" cost overruns and might not be ready for the 2024 Olympics as planned.

(Reporting by Bate Felix; editing by John Stonestreet)