Controversial Nantes airport construction to start next year, Valls
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has declared that the controversial construction of an airport near the western city of Nantes will go ahead in 2015, despite legal orders to suspend the project following long-running protests.
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The construction of Notre Dame des Landes airport should start as soon as in mid-2015, told the regional daily Ouest-France.
"Good luck with that!" was Ecology Minister Ségolène Royal's response.
"The prime minister can take any decision he wants, I don't have to comment," she added, apparently embarrassed by the fact that Valls had not bothered to inform her of his position before giving the interview.
Controversy over the airport, which has led to protests of thousands of ecology campaigners, left-wingers and local farmers, has to a split with the Green party, EELV.
On Monday they announced that they will run a separate list from the Socialists for the regional elections in March 2015.
For months now thousands of protesters have regularly demonstrated against the project, some setting up a camp to occupy the Notre Dame des Landes site.
The controversial plan to build a new airport to replace the existing one in Nantes was first proposed in the 1960s but constantly postponed following the 1970s oil-crisis.
It was brought back to the top of the agenda when Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin decided to reduce congestion at Parisian airports in 2000.
Despite strong support from former prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, a former mayor of Nantes, the building permits, which were filed in April 2013, have been suspended due to numerous and successive appeals based on environmental decrees.
At least eight appeals were filed in October 2014 to claim the return of more than 38 million euros in public subsidies already paid to the private construction group Vinci.
More than 30 other objections are still under investigation, according to the project's opponents.
"The project has been supported by regional and local authorities," said Valls, who refuses to sacrifice the project because of ecological concerns.
Some of the plans opponents have questioned the real financial interest of the project.
Vinci is due to receive 12 per cent annual return - around 11 million euros per year - while the airport's profits are not expected to exceed 12 million euros, leaving almost nothing to pay off local and regional public bodies.
It was also recently revealed by the Canard Enchaîné weekly that the new airport buildings and facilities will actually be considerably smaller than those of the current airport, might not conform to the necessary standards and may leave passengers walking longer distances.
“The fire station would lose 20 per cent of its area,” the paper reported in October and “the building used for the maintenance of aircraft would lose almost half of its area “.
The authorities admit it will be “more compact” but say it can handle more than four million passengers per year and will eventually able to take nine million.
The cost of the project was estimated at 560 million euros excluding tax in 2010 for an airport with a capacity of five million travellers.
But the final bill, with an extended capacity of nine million passengers, could reach at least 800 million euros.
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