PARIS, 10 August — As part of cost-cutting measures that hopefully will allow it to balance its books, the French government has decided to cancel construction of a third major international airport for the Paris region.
The idea for a third world-class airport for the Paris region had been decided upon by the Socialist government of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, to divert air traffic away from the French capital’s two existing international airports — at Orly and Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.
After years of searching for a suitable site, it was decided
several months ago that the airport would be built in the Somme department, near Chaulnes, a small sparsely-settled rural village, not far away from Amiens, which is itself 80 miles north of Paris.
Interestingly, the decision to cancel construction of the facility was taken by newly-named French Transportation Minister Gilles de Robien, who happens to also be mayor of Amiens, and had never hidden his opposition to the selection of Chaulnes as the site for the new airport.
The selection of Chaulnes had never proved to be popular, indeed it had been energetically protested by Great Britain as construction of an airport would have brought about the displacement of some World War I British war graves.
"The ball is now back in the court of the French National Assembly," noted de Robien in making the announcement. In September de Robien is to name a special mission charged this time not with selecting another site for the facility, but deciding "once and for all" whether the Paris region needs a third airport in the first place. Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport still has considerable room to grow, and could continue to expand beyond the year 2030.
The choice of Chaulnes had been taken at the instigation of de Robien’s predecessor as transport minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, who had given in to pressure by local residents and political leaders representing the several communities that adjoin Roissy-CDG airports who had vociferously complained about the level of noise pollution that had been recorded in the area in recent years.
With the arrival of a new generation of less noisy aircraft, de Robien and French civil aviation authorities are hoping that local denizens will now accept more traffic at Roissy-CDG, thus allowing the problem of construction of a third airport to quietly go away.
