The European Commission has given the go-ahead, with minor adjustments, to the idea of Emmanuel Macron’s Executive to ban domestic flights in France when it is possible to make the same journey by train in less than two and a half hours, as reported by the minister French for Transport, Clément Beaune. This is one of the main measures of the Climate Law of 2021. There is still no scheduled date for it to begin to be applied and it could mean, for example, eliminating air connections between cities such as Paris and Nantes, where there is an alternative train in less than two and a half hours.
“The European Commission has just issued a decision in favor of the ban on airlines when there is an alternative of less than 2h30 by train,” the minister wrote in his Twitter account. Twitter.
Requirements
According to the project, the prohibition will apply to those regular public passenger transport flights, transport services for which a rail connection provides, in each direction, a journey of less than two and a half hours. However, Brussels warns that the following must be met requirements: that there is a train station that connects to those cities; direct trips and without train changes; and that they have a sufficient frequency and with satisfactory schedulesaccording to La Vanguardia.
France thus becomes a “pioneer country”, celebrated in a tweet the French Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, who also recalled that the initiative arose from a citizen agreement and that the decarbonisation of transport is an essential measure to move towards a transition ecological.
