While the government is embarking on a serious reflection on the subject since the outbursts of laughter deemed inappropriate by the coach and the PSG striker, the debate about private jets and their regulation has only just begun. Deputies from the La France insoumise (LFI) group proposed, on Monday, September 12, that private jets be completely banned from use in France and tabled a bill to this effect.
In recent weeks, left-wing elected officials and environmental activists have pointed to the very high carbon footprint of private jet travel, calling for their supervision. The “rebellious” deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis Thomas Portes, author of the text aimed at their banning, insisted on the fact that, according to him, it was a question of “an ecologically urgent measure (…), jet travel is ultra-polluting when related to a person”Monday, during a press conference at the National Assembly.
“You can’t ask to lower the heating in thermal sieves, (…) to behave responsibly and exonerate a minority that is burning the planet”he added, stressing that it was also a measure of social justice.
A way to put “pressure” on the executive
The text he presented alongside several other “rebellious” elected officials, including the deputy and environmental activist Alma Dufour, specifically plans to ban from 1is January 2023 “the circulation of private planes chartered at the request of an individual or a company excluding conventional commercial flights”. An exemption is provided for flights “medical evacuations” or which concern “national security”. It also provides for the implementation of a redeployment and retraining plan for affected employees.
However, it is not yet on the agenda of the National Assembly since the LFI group has not included it on the menu of its next day of “parliamentary niche”, scheduled for November 24. But by filing this text, LFI intends to put a form of « pression » on the executive, said the “rebellious” deputy Antoine Léaument.
A proposal to ban private jets in the event of a pollution threshold exceeded was also presented by the environmental group to the Senate at the end of July.
“Behaviours need to change”
On Sunday, the Minister for Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, declared that all sectors must participate in decarbonisation, but that it would not be ” serious “ to imply that a « combat [sur] jets » would solve “the whole problem”.
The Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, who had himself called at the end of August to “regulate private jet flights”for his part repeated that “behaviours need to change”. He mentioned the trail of “tax measures” on aviation which has “a more favorable tax regime than certain modes of transport”.
In three years, business aviation has increased by 16% in three years, according to Eurocontrol, the traffic monitoring body. CO emissions2 private jets in Europe increased by 31% between 2005 and 2019, according to a study by Transportation & Environmentwhich brings together European NGOs in the sector.