Members of the climate change alarmist group Extinction Rebellion occupied runways at Paris Orly Airport on Friday, interrupting flights and demanding domestic air travel be cancelled.
Airports in France, heavily impacted by coronavirus restrictions, begun increasing their operations only recently, but passenger flights were interrupted by the Extinction Rebellion group on Friday morning, with activists demanding that all domestic air travel in France be banned.
Extinction Rebellion insists that domestic air travel should be banned to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and carried banners at Orly stating “let’s save the living, not the planes.”
A Corsica Airlines aircraft was delayed by the group and forced to take off from a different runway, Le Figaro reports.
A member of the organisation named Franck told French media: “It is a symbol of facing an aeroplane, to face what puts us in danger.”
The activist went on to note that he was surprised that the police reaction to the demonstration took as long as it did, saying, “We expected a faster reaction. It says a lot about security, anyone can enter.”
A spokesperson of the French Secretariat of State for Transport said that 29 people were arrested for entering the secure area of the airport.
Extinction Rebellion are not the only ones on the side of banning domestic flights within France. The government of President Emmanuel Macron has also come out in support of such a policy, making it a requirement for Air France to receive coronavirus bailout cash.
French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire said that in order to get the cash, the airline would have to become the greenest airline in the world: “It involves the elimination of domestic flights, and quite frankly when you can make the train journey in less than two and a half hours, taking a plane is not justified. It should not be a transitional measure but a definitive measure.”
Climate change extremists have previously made threats to the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, saying they would launch cyberattacks against the left-wing party for supporting bailouts for British airlines.