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France formalises ban on short domestic flights

France has formalised its ban on domestic flights for journeys possible in less than two-and-a-half hours by train, which is already in effect in practice but was published in a government decree on Tuesday.

France formalises ban on short domestic flights
Photo by Thibaud MORITZ / AFP

Although the move was included in a 2021 climate law and already applied in practice, some airlines had asked the European Commission to investigate whether it was legal.

The change mostly rules out air trips between Paris and regional hubs such as Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, with connecting flights unaffected.

Critics have noted that the cutoff point for comparable train journeys is shy of the roughly three hours it takes to travel from Paris to Mediterranean port city Marseille by high-speed rail.

The original proposal – put forward by the citizens’ convention on the climate – was to ban any flight for journeys that could be done within six hours by rail, but this was watered down as the bill passed through parliament.

The law also specifies that train services on the same route must be frequent, timely and well-connected enough to meet the needs of passengers who would otherwise travel by air – and able to absorb the increase in passenger numbers.

People making such trips should be able to make outbound and return train journeys on the same day, having spent eight hours at their destination.

READ ALSO 6 European cities you can reach from France by high-speed train

The law affects only commercial flights, not journeys taken by private jet. The government had already secured Air France’s compliance with the plan in exchange for a 2020 Covid financial support package.

Competitors were banned from simply filling the gap.

The step comes as French politicians have also been debating how to reduce emissions from private jets.

While Green MPs have called for banning small private flights altogether, Transport Minister Clement Beaune last month trailed a higher climate charge for users from next year.

The French football team Paris-Saint-Germain last year came in for an avalanche of criticism for travelling by plane to a match in Nantes – a journey that could be made by train in just two hours.

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POLITICS

France to sell Russian oligarch’s Riviera chateau

French authorities have put up for sale a luxurious multi-million-euro chateau seized from the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky who died in 2013 and was a sworn opponent of President Vladimir Putin, the agency handling confiscated assets said on Friday.

France to sell Russian oligarch's Riviera chateau

Berezovsky acquired the Chateau de la Garoupe on the Cote d’Azur in the 1990s while post-Soviet Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin was in power and the tycoon was considered one of the most powerful people in the country.

But it was confiscated by French authorities in 2015, two years after Berezovsky was found dead in exile at his home in England in circumstances that have never been fully explained. He had by then become a bitter opponent of Putin.

A screenshot from Google Maps, showing the Chateau de la Garoupe along the coast.

The property was built on the prestigious Cap d’Antibes by the British industrialist and MP Charles McLaren, and its rich history has seen it associated with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway.

The chateau “represents exceptional architectural and cultural heritage. Its acquisition offers a unique opportunity to own a prestigious residence steeped in history in an enchanting setting,” France’s Agrasc agency on confiscated assets said in a statement.

Interested parties can express their interest from June 16th to July 17th and those validated as possible buyers can submit bids from September.

The chateau, like the neighbouring property of the Clocher (Belltower) de la Garoupe, also owned by Berezovsky, was confiscated after being judged to be the proceeds of money laundering committed by investment company Sifi and its manager, Jean-Louis Bordes.

They were ruled to have acted as a front for Berezovsky.

Reacting in response to an initial complaint filed by Russia, the French authorities needed 10 years to unravel the complex history of purchases including that of the Chateau de la Garoupe in December 1996.

The Cote d’Azur has been popular with rich Russians going back to visits from the imperial family at the turn of the century.

After the collapse of the USSR, it became a favourite playground for the country’s oligarchs.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sanctions from the West has made owning property and even entering France increasingly problematic for many Russians.

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