If Air France will abandon the lines of destinations served by the train in less than 2:30, the State also wants to prevent low-cost companies from taking advantage of it.
The crisis will force Air France to abandon certain destinations which could be banned from flying altogether.
This is currently a project on which the government is working but which will obviously cause controversy. In exchange for the seven billion euros loan that the State granted to Air France, the company was forced to give up the lines served in less than 2:30 by train, except to join Roissy. No more Orly-Bordeaux, Orly-Nantes or Orly-Lyon. But nothing prevents other companies, especially low-costs, from taking the place of Air France on these destinations. This is precisely what the government wants to prevent by decreeing that these cities are only accessible by train.
It creates a gap to replace planes with trains one day on longer destinations.
The citizens' convention on the climate, for example, wants to ban the plane on the destinations served in less than four hours by train, which, for once, would include Avignon, Aix, Marseille, Montpellier etc. We are not there yet, but we can clearly see the temptation. The other question is to know if all this is legal because Brussels could put its nose in the business and estimate that one cannot prevent an airline company from launching on even very short destinations. In the meantime, it is to be expected that the elected officials concerned will rise to the front: to deprive a large metropolis of an air link to Orly is to damage its status.