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If the bankruptcy of the tour operator is confirmed, 600 000 tourists should be immediately repatriated. REUTERS / Phil Noble

The British tour operator, in great difficulty, must find additional funding this weekend to avoid filing for bankruptcy.

"It all started in 1841, Thomas Cook invented the tour ," recalls the travel agency on Twitter. Will the adventure stop there? The day is in any case crucial for the pioneer of tour operators. Fragile by the competition in the sector and the vagueness that Brexit hangs over the British economy, the company is on the brink of bankruptcy.

This Sunday morning, shareholders and creditors have an appointment to try to avoid the disaster. Objective: to find 200 million additional pounds (227 million euros). The group has launched a major restructuring plan, giving up control of its tour operator business and part of its airline to Chinese Fosun , but the promised 900,000 million pounds is not enough. In the afternoon, a board of directors must seal the fate of the turnkey travel specialist.

Some 600,000 tourists to repatriate

And the stakes are high: if the company does not raise the necessary funds, it will have to repatriate immediately its 600,000 tourists scattered around the world. For a cost estimated at several billion pounds, part of which is borne by the British authorities.

According to Agence France-Presse, quoting a source familiar with the matter, the tour operator hopes that the government will inject the missing funds. The union TSSA, which represents the employees, wrote Saturday to the Minister of Enterprise and Industry, Andrea Leadsom, to demand an " urgent meeting ".

" Society must be saved anyway. No serious British government would endorse the loss of so many jobs, "wrote Manuel Cortes, the secretary general of TSSA in a statement. Around 22,000 people, including 9,000 in the UK, work for the pioneer of tour operators.

(with AFP)