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Prime Minister Jean Castex leaving the voting booth
Photo: RAYMOND ROIG / AFP
French Prime Minister Jean Castex has defended himself for flying around 800 kilometers to the polling station in Sunday's presidential election.
"I followed the usual rules that apply to prime ministers," Castex said of his trip from Paris to Prades in southern France and back to the capital.
“I took the government plane.
The prime minister has to be in Paris as quickly as possible if there's even the slightest problem," he explained to the broadcaster RTL.
Since there is no postal voting in France, Castex had traveled to Prades to vote, where he was mayor until 2020.
He described the criticism of his flight as polemics.
The French prime minister was criticized at the beginning of the year for regularly flying to appointments in the country instead of using one of the fast TGV trains, which is ecologically exemplary.
In view of climate change, the government in Paris also wants to improve regional rail routes again.
Castex was also criticized last year because after the inauguration of the new night train from Paris to Nice, he also returned to Paris by plane.
According to calculations by the newspaper "Le Parisien", the head of government's flight to the polling station cost around 10,000 euros and caused a CO₂ impact that corresponds to that of an average citizen within six months.
After the first round of voting on Sunday, there will be a runoff between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and his right-wing populist competitor Marine Le Pen on April 24.
According to the preliminary final result from Monday, Macron received 27.84 percent of the votes in the first round, Le Pen 23.15 percent (read a comment here).
He has not yet said which means of transport Prime Minister Castex intends to use to reach the ballot box.
as/dpa