MPs late on Saturday voted to halt some flights by domestic airlines, which can be made in less than two and a half hours by train, as part of a broader climate bill.
If the bill passes through the French main house, the Senate, in France, they will join a number of European countries that want to move away from short-haul flights.
But some have criticized President Emmanuel Macron for watering down proposals from his own environmental panel, which recommended a ban on flights where the train would take less than four hours.
Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said the government’s proposal was “reasonable”. He told lawmakers during the debate that a four-hour threshold “would really have an impact on areas that need flights.”
“If there is a strong alternative, customers usually switch to trains,” he said, referring to routes from Strasbourg and Bordeaux to Paris. “Every time high-speed lines compete with flights, we have noticed that trains have largely drained (airline passengers).”
Djebbari also said the bill would put an end to flights from Orly airport in Paris to Nantes and Lyon.
But the measures do not apply to routes that are normally part of an international connecting flight; which means that the Charles de Gaulle airport in the capital is largely spared by the move because it is France’s main international transport hub.
Left-wing MP Danièle Obono said the government’s plan to move from a four-hour limit would ‘save the three routes that emit the most greenhouse gases: Paris-Nice, Paris-Toulouse, (en) Paris-Marseille . ‘
The four-hour proposal comes from the mayoral panel of the Climate Convention, set up by Macron to reduce the country’s temperature on measures.
A number of European countries have sought to promote train travel as an alternative to domestic flights, even though the Covid-19 pandemic has put the airline industry under pressure.
The € 600 million ($ 714 million) state aid package for Austrian Airlines stipulated that it would reduce its domestic flight emissions by 50% by 2050 and end flights where a direct train alternative “takes significantly less than three hours”.