Exit, the jet.
Prime Minister Jean Castex, traveling to Occitania this weekend, says he will not return to Paris with a private plane made available to the State, as he did for the first round of the presidential election at the cost of a lively controversy.
Sunday morning, after having fulfilled his duty as a citizen in his city of Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales), the head of government will return to Paris by taking a commercial flight.
“I am finishing the campaign in Occitania (…), so on Sunday I will go directly to Prades and I will be able to go up by airliner, which could not have been possible the last time”, he announced. to our colleagues from L'Indépendant.
The Prime Minister also landed by a regular flight in Montpellier on Thursday, before joining Nîmes, then Alès.
This Thursday, Jean Castex finds Emmanuel Macron in Figeac, in the Lot, for the last moment of his presidential candidate's campaign.
A "voted" weighing 5 tons of CO2
Jean Castex may well have defended his round trip in the first round, admitted, he said, “within the framework of the usual rules”, this costly and polluting flight caused cringe among, in particular, defenders of the environmental cause
.
The controversy ended with the publication of an online petition asking him to use, in the future, the power of attorney presented as an appropriate solution by the government itself.
"To get to his polling station in Prades on April 10, Jean Castex used a Falcon, one of the state's jets, releasing nearly 5 tons of CO2 for this single round trip, or as much as a Frenchman in 6 months”, denounced the petition.
It has, to date, collected some 35,000 signatures.
“A Prime Minister – me, my predecessors, my successors – must be able to repatriate to Paris very quickly in case there are dramatic events.
That's how it was, Jean Castex justified on RTL two days after the first round.
It's not me who set these rules and it's not me who's going to change them", he continued, referring to "imperatives in Paris".
In February, Mediapart had highlighted the "frenzied" use of private jets by the Prime Minister.
