French lawmakers have moved towards a ban short-haul internal flights in a bid to reduce carbon emissions.

The BBC has reported that French lawmakers voted in favour of a bill which would ban journeys where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours. Connecting flights would not be affected.The measures will be subject to a further vote in the Senate before becoming law and could affect travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux.

Climate convention had called for greater restrictions on flights

The BBC reported that the French government had faced calls to introduce even stricter rules on domestic flights. France’s Citizens’ Convention on Climate was created by President Emmanuel Macron in 2019, the organisation, which includes 150 members of the public, had previously proposed scrapping plane journeys where train journeys of under four hours existed.

The vote on Saturday came just days after the French government more than doubled its stake in Air France. The government had previously offered €7bn (£6bn) in loans to help the airline weather the pandemic. France’s economy minister said, at the time of the bailout, that the funding was dependent on the airline scrapping some of its domestic flights.

Last year, Austrian Airlines replaced a flight route between the capital Vienna and the city of Salzburg with an increased train service, after receiving a government bailout with provisions to cut its carbon footprint.

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