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It's official: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel:
France has been given the green light to ban short haul domestic flights.
The European Commission has approved the move which will abolish flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of less than 2.5 hours.
[...] France is also cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys in a bid to make transport greener and fairer for the population.
Transport minister Clément Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super rich using private planes while the public are making cutbacks to deal with the energy crisis and climate change.
[...] The ban on short-haul flights will be valid for three years, after which it must be reassessed by the Commission.
"[This] is a major step forward in the policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions," transport minister Beaune said in a press release.
[...] Sarah Fayolle, Greenpeace France transport campaign manager, told Euronews that there were both "negative and positive aspects" to the European Commission's decision given that only three routes are affected.
"It's going in the right direction, but the initial measure is one that's (not very) ambitious. We must go even further," she said.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday December 12, @12:54AM (1 child)
Hmm no: what people want is for the super-rich to pay their taxes like the rest of us.
And they can fly in private planes too if they want: what the government should be doing it taxing the activity just bad enough that rich people who really want to use that mode of transportation can, but most well-to-do won't. Like a million dollars per traveled mile or something. I bet there's plenty of kajilionnaires who will pay any amount to avoid flying with the plebs. This would be fairer to the general population, who has to pay taxes through the nose just because their everyday car has a slightly sportier engine, and it would net the state some money - as opposed to banning it outright.
Finland has the right idea of how to deal with rich people: they fine people for speeding based on their income [boredpanda.com]: if you're rich, it hurts you as much as it hurts poor people to break the law, so you don't get to do what poor people can't just because you're rich. Same thing for flying: it should hurt you as much as it hurts poor people to fly in style just because you want to feel spoiled.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NateMich on Monday December 12, @03:17AM
If you're going to ban people from driving around in ICE cars, then you should probably address the aircraft as well.
This seems reasonable to me, in that respect.