France has formalized its environment-based ban on short domestic flights that could be made by train after EU approval, but very few routes are actually affected because of watering-down of the original proposal.
The rule that has gone into effect bans flights where the journey could be made by train in under 2.5 hours, a limit that still allows three-hour flights from Paris to Marseille and a number of other routes. It also exempts flights of any length that are connections to international flights.
When first proposed, six hours was proposed as the standard, but was later reduced to four and then 2.5. The law also applies only to routes where train service is available both early and late, allowing a traveler to spend an 8-hour day at the destination and still return the same day.
Environmental activists have attacked the change in the rules as gutting the benefit to the environment. They have also raised issues about private jets being exempted from the restriction; the Green Party has called for a complete ban on small private flights. The best the government has offered so far on that issue is a plan to impose a climate charge next year on those flights.
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