Paris abandons the 4th terminal project at Roissy airport, deemed "obsolete"
A passenger walks through Paris airport, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, February 5, 2021. REUTERS - Gonzalo Fuentes
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
The colossal project of the new terminal at the Parisian airport of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle has been abandoned, announced Thursday February 11 the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili, to the newspaper Le Monde.
But many wonder if the abandonment of the project, which was to accommodate up to 40 million more passengers per year from 2037, is an ecological or economic act.
Publicity
Read more
With 450 more flights per day, the new T4 terminal at Roissy airport would have looked like an airport in the airport.
But its construction, at a cost of 7 to 9 billion euros, is now irrelevant.
In fact, Barbara Pompili, Minister of Ecology, told
Le Monde that
at a time of the fight against global warming,
this project is "
obsolete
"
.
"
It is an obsolete project, which no longer corresponded to the environmental policy of the government and to the requirements of a sector in full change, turned towards the green plane of tomorrow
", estimated Mrs. Pompili.
According to
Le Monde
, "
the government is now asking Groupe ADP to propose a completely different project, which will not be focused on increasing the capacity of Roissy
", the second airport in Europe behind London-Heathrow before the crisis.
But the project was already in the air in July 2020, when the Environmental Authority estimated that the equation between increasing the number of flights, road traffic and meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets. greenhouse was far from being resolved.
The drastic drop in the number of thefts due to the health crisis
has probably planted the last nail in the coffin.
This announcement therefore gives reason to the twenty associations and collectives of elected officials, who had filed appeals against the extension of the airport, because of
the environmental impact and nuisance
.
Greenpeace considers the announcement ambiguous
The Paris Airport company (ADP) must approve the decision to abandon next week.
"
Groupe ADP takes note of this request,
" replied the manager, and "
is taking time to reflect on the challenges for the future of the airport
", according to its CEO Augustin de Romanet.
The environmental association Greenpeace considered Thursday's announcement ambiguous and stressed on Twitter that "
whatever the project, it is not acceptable to increase air traffic further
".
The elected members of the Alternative Ecologist and Social Group of the Region, while saying they remain "
vigilant
", considered that the abandonment of the current project constituted "
an environmental victory for Ile-de-France.
It took a pandemic to bring down a project that has never been sustainable, nor compatible with France's commitments on the climate
”.
As for the Medef, his boss Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux considered “
a little premature
” to have decided to draw a line on an additional terminal.
“
I would have understood the suspension.
Because, objectively, air traffic, we all see it (...) it is no longer the growth that we imagined two or more years ago,
”he declared on France Inter.
►
To read also: Air transport: an unprecedented drop in passenger traffic in 2020
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
France
Aeronautics
Paris
Environment
Climate change
Economy
On the same subject
France's trade deficit widened sharply in 2020
Air transport: an unprecedented drop in passenger traffic in 2020