French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced on Wednesday that a controversial plan to build a major new airport near Nantes in north-west France, a project first mooted 50 years ago and which was bitterly opposed by environmentalists who prevented construction work from commencing by occupying the rural site, has been definitively abandoned. The decision ends decades of fudging by successive governments, infuriating supporters of the 600-million-euro project at Notre-Dame-des-Landes who argued it would have provided a much needed boost to the region’s economy.
French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Wednesday announced his government’s decision to abandon plans to build a 580-million-euro airport in countryside close to Nantes in north-west France, putting an end to a 50-year-old a project which had become a major controversy, championed by local politicians and bitterly opposed by a wide alliance of environmentalists.
