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Paris airports privatisation

For the non-French readers here,
Macron’s government wants to privatize the public company that operates CDG, Orly, Le Bourget and a big majority of Paris GA airports (most of the LFPx). About a third of the French Parliament launched an initiative, legal but never tried before, to stop that from happening. The next step is asking for support from citizens for doing a vote on the subject. If 10% of all French voters support this vote, it will happen.

Needless to say this is going to be this story will continue for years and years, and I thought I would make a thread just to keep track of it.

My opinion is if our fields were privatized, it would not ease GA ops at all.

LFOU, France

Tell them never to do it, at least not without the proper regulatory safeguards in place.

Otherwise you’ll end up like the mess we have in the UK – with light GA being shunted from one remote field to another (or give up flying altogether if inconvenient), due to owners having all the power to determine who uses their field, raising prices beyond inflation, introducing a cartel of mandatory handling agents, selling land off to other developers for other land uses, and short sighted airport development plans to pay dividends to investors.

It’ll pitch different user groups against each other as they fight over runway and airspace rights of access without any form of cohesion or strategy.

Last Edited by James_Chan at 11 May 21:53

Does France have a law or some other regulatory framework which classifies airports as a part of the national transport infrastructure?

If not, it is only a matter of time before the local chamber of commerce funding comes under scrutiny, and that would shut down many GA-accessible airports.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

James_Chan wrote:

Otherwise you’ll end up like the mess we have in the UK

That’s precisely what I and others have in mind We have plenty of examples in France too.
Peter wrote:

Does France have a law or some other regulatory framework which classifies airports as a part of the national transport infrastructure?

That’s the point of the referendum. AIUI, the law that would be put to a referendum declares Paris airports ‘a national public service’ because that would make them public property forever.
This process has many legal obstacles on its way. Finding 4,75 millions of supporters will not be dead easy, but one can think that even if only 1 or 2 million people oppose the privatisation, it would make it very difficult to make it happen.

A major point is that Paris Airports (ADP group) took ownership of the whole airports including the land, for free, from the governement (to be clear, the French governement gave the airports to ADP for zero euro, because it was supposed to remain public). The current governement claims it would only give a 70-years license to the privatized ADP.

LFOU, France

The petition for the referendum is open since June. Almost 500,000 people signed it for now, which is rather encouraging (10% of the minimum required).
Of course, no media talk about it

The website to sign it is here
You need to enter your French ID or passport details (they are checked) and an email address.

All the French nationals here, please sign it !

One example : Nantes LFRS is asking the local aeroclub a massive increase in their rent. A change.org petition is here

Everyone who flew once to Nantes knows this club is friendly and gives basic handling to visiting GA, making stops there affordable.
Now is the time to return them a favor.

LFOU, France

As an update, the official petition has reached one million signatures !!!!
Many simple citizens have worked hard to make people aware (in the street) of this unfair and dangerous sell of Paris airports. It is like selling the road network !

Of course, the government acts as if nothing happened, and repeat that 4,7 million people are necessary to trigger a referendum. With the national strikes going on, of course nobody is interested.

Many people I tried to convince couldn’t care less. People flee their responsabilities as citizens. Democracy can only work if everyone thinks and acts not only for their direct interest (daydreaming here).

LFOU, France
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