New airport plan ditched by government

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced the decision today, saying: “This decision is logical considering the deadlock in which this project finds itself. Fifty years of hesitations have never brought clarity. This decision is unambiguous – the land will be returned to agricultural use.”

He told the protestors occupying part of the site to leave by spring “or be expelled”.

This comes after the government commissioned a new study by three experts who reported last month and despite the fact Emmanuel Macron had said during his election campaign that he wished construction to go ahead.

“My first reflex would have been to authorise it without delay, but things always seem simpler when they’re viewed from afar,” Mr Philippe said.

He said Notre-Dame-des-Landes was “the airport of division” and that “the seriousness of the economic issues that the country is going through, the seriousness of the issues of security that we face, demand that we should pull together around our priorities”.

Having spoken to mayors, whether for or against the airport, their main message had been to “get us out of this situation,” he said.

Opponents have said the airport is unnecessary because the existing Nantes Atlantique airport – which it was meant to replace – is sufficient, and that Notre-Dame-des-Landes, which was to be built on an area of farmland, moors and woods, would harm plant and animal life.

Supporters put forward arguments including job creation and reduced nuisance for residents.

The project was declared in the public interest in 2008 and was meant to start in 2013 but it faced legal challenges – which failed – from opponents. In 2016 voters of the Loire-Atlantique department voted 55% in favour of it in a referendum.

It is now planned that instead Nantes Atlantique will be modernised, including lengthening the runway. The government also plans more investment for the airport at Rennes, so as to “better spread out the air traffic in the west of France”.

Protestors known as zadistes who are camped out at the site have been told to leave.

Mr Philippe said: “We will put an end to the no-go zone that has proliferated over the last 10 years in this area…. The squats that encroach on the road will have to be removed and people who are occupying these lands illegally will have to either go of their own accord by the spring or be expelled.”

A spokesman for campaigners against the project, Julien Durand, said the abandonment was “an immense joy for all those who have fought against it”.

He called on the government to have “constructive dialogue” with protestors at the site, avoiding use of force by the police.

Nature charity WWF France also welcomed the decision, saying: “We hail the abandonment of the project – in doing so Emmanuel Macron is being logical: wanting to take a leading role on the world stage in terms of climate change while at the same time building this new international airport would have made no sense.”

Passengers’ lobby group Fnaut said the decision to modernise Nantes Atlantique instead was “common sense”.

However, the chairman of a group representing communes that supported the plan, Philippe Grosvalet, said: “By this decision [Mr Macron] is stomping underfoot the procedures and the legal decisions, our local councils and the vote of the residents.”

Another issue that will now need to be addressed is compensation for Vinci, the group contracted to build the airport, which could reportedly amount to several hundreds of millions.