Situated 65 kilometres, as the crow flies, north of the French capital, and serving 29 destinations across Europe and North Africa, Paris-Beauvais airport is the region’s major hub for low-cost carriers, which account for 99% of its traffic.
Chief among these is Irish airline Ryanair, which began flights to and from the airport in 1997, since when its activities have steadily grown; between 2006 and 2016, passenger numbers rose by 112%, which was four times more than the average rise among French airports, helped by the opening of a second passenger terminal in 2010.
In 2024, passenger numbers reached a record 6,557,505, a rise of 16.3% on 2023, and a leap of 64.6% compared with pre-Covid numbers in 2019.
But now two associations representing local residents and an environmentalist NGO have begun legal action to block the planned further development of the airport, which includes an annual passenger turnover of 9.4 million by 2050, when air traffic is due to rise by 56% on current activity.
The associations are concerned about the threat to public health from the atmospheric and noise pollution this will entail, and argue that, amid the climate crisis, the plan runs counter to official emissions targets.
It was in July 2024 that the airport’s public owners of the airport, an entity called a syndicat mixte and made up of the local authorities in and around the town of Beauvais, together with the local Oise département (county), and the Hauts-de-France region, handed a contract for the airport’s operational management to Bellova, a company whose stakeholders include French engineering and mobility services group Egis, construction, media and telecommunications group Bouygues, and Spanish investment fund Serena Industrial Partners. The 30-year concession is estimated to be worth 4 billion euros.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
While global warming is increasing (the global average last year overtook pre-industrial averages by 1.5° Celsius), carbon emissions in France linked to air transport jumped by 17% between 2000 and 2019, according to the French transport ministry. Meanwhile, the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), an umbrella group of NGOs campaigning for sustainable means of transport, estimated that low-cost airlines had, altogether, increased year-on-year their numbers of flights in French airspace by 13% in 2023.
“It’s a logic of economic growth from the old world,” commented Dominique Lazarski, chairwoman of ADERA, an association for the protection of the interests of inhabitants living close to Paris-Beauvais airport.
Her association is joined in the legal action to overturn the concession of the airport by Sauvez le Beauvaisis, an association campaigning for a ceiling to be placed on the airport’s traffic. “This new concession contract is ecologically nonsensical,” said its chairman, Boris Vivier. “To develop an airport to that extent runs counter to this country’s climate path.” He underlined that the low-cost airline model is for a large part based on receiving public subsidies. In 2017, France’s national audit body, the Court of Accounts, published a report highlighting the generous financial conditions offered to Ryanair by the airport (also known by its commercially less-used name of Beauvais-Tillé).
A climate crash
The two associations, along with French environmentalist NGO Notre Affaire à Tous, filed a petition before an administrative tribunal in Amiens calling for the annulment of the Bellova expansion plan. In the documents sent to the tribunal, they argue that the development of the airport as set out in the contract will necessarily lead to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions “in excessive proportions and fundamentally incompatible” with France’s national low-carbon strategy (SNBC), which is a government roadmap of objectives for the decarbonation of major economic sectors.
They underline that gas emissions from commercial traffic at Paris-Beauvais have increased almost tenfold since 2000, and that the contract’s forecast of passenger numbers by 2050 exceeds the ceiling increase contained in last year’s SNBC.
“The development of traffic at Paris-Beauvais airport as planned by the concession contract contributes to climate change, whereas the SNBC obliges the transport sector to follow a decarbonation trajectory up to 2050 and which is binding from a legal point of view,” said jurist Adeline Paradeise, representing Notre Affaire à Tous.
A serious health threat
The three associations also highlight that the increase in traffic as foreseen in the contract will forcibly lead to higher atmospheric pollution, in contradiction with France’s Charter for the Environment, which is part of the country’s constitution, and which protects “the right to live in an environment that is balanced and respectful of health”. In their application, the associations cite “the right to breath an air that is not harmful to health, as set out in Article L.200-1 of the Code of the environment”.
They point out that the concentrations of atmospheric pollution which are recorded by two measuring stations close to the airport are frequently revealed to exceed levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Concerning nitrogen dioxide, the applicants cite the WHO recommendations limiting annual exposure to an average 10 μg/m3 (micrograms per cubic metre). “Whereas, in the immediate environment of Beauvais airport,” they write, “the level of nitrogen dioxide never fell below 10 μg/m3 during the last three years (with one exception in October 2024). On the contrary, the levels often exceed the level of 20 μg.” They add that an increase in traffic would “mechanically have the effect of increasing emissions of atmospheric pollutants”.
According to Santé publique France, the agency with responsibility for epidemiological monitoring, air pollution from fine particulate matter is responsible for 40,000 deaths each year in France. Exposure to ultra-fine particulates (UFPs) can trigger serious illnesses, notably respiratory and heart disease.
Finally, the three associations warn of the significant noise pollution that would be created by the expansion plan in the concession contract. Like for the levels of atmospheric pollution, they point out that the measurements of noise from the airport’s activities already “frequently” exceed limits allowed by French regulations, and “almost systematically the limits recommended by the WHO”. They cite recent scientific studies which conclude that “the health consequences of noise pollution are considerable”, particularly concerning the higher risk of death for those suffering from cardiovascular problems.
“We’re already in a region with a rate of illnesses [among the population] above the national average,” Dominique Lazarski told Mediapart. “We’re not asking for the increase in air traffic planned at Beauvais be transferred elsewhere, but just for a normal living environment with regard to health.”
Jurist Adeline Paradeise hopes at the least that the magistrate in charge of examining the case will either propose a process of conciliation, or rule that the terms of the concession contract be modified. “It’s the first time in France that, in litigation concerning an airport, legal action raises both the climate issue and that of health”.
The SMABT ‘syndicat mixte’ – the consortium of public bodies which own the airport – gave the tribunal its response to the legal action earlier this month. Contacted by Mediapart, the consortium said “the proposal by the company Bellova was chosen notably for the reason of the pledges it has made for the preservation of the environment”.
In April last year, the chairwoman of the SMABT, Caroline Cayeux, a former junior minister for local authorities in 2022 and who is currently the president of the greater Beauvais municipal council, promised “a green airport with carparks that are respectful of the environment”, prompting Dominique Lazarski to comment: “She simply forgot that aircraft take off and land on her eco-airport.”
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse