Magny Cours is on pole position to return to the F1 calendar next year, the boss of the former French grand prix venue has said.

"If the will of a number of people is confirmed in the coming weeks, we are very close," Magny Cours chief Serge Saulnier told France’s Infosport on Monday.

France has been absent from the F1 calendar since Magny Cours, located in the centre of the country some 250 kilometres from Paris, lost the race after 2008.

"We are still in negotiations with FOM," Saulnier added, referring to F1’s commercial rights company that is run by F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.

"We are a candidate for a date in 2015, but for now nothing is signed," he said, revealing that representatives of local regions have been asked to contribute towards the race fee.

"I am hoping," Saulnier continued. "We have been working on it for more than three years, it has built slowly but surely, and I feel that the time has arrived to sign this agreement.

"I hope and I would like it to be done before the summer," he added.