France: can't football teams take the train?

When asked at a press conference whether the French champion football team Paris Saint-German could travel to away matches by train rather than by plane for environmental reasons, star Kylian Mbappé and coach Christophe Galtier merely mocked the suggestion, triggering a storm of indignation on social media. France's press attempts to bring objectivity to the discussion.

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Libération (FR) /

A good chance to change attitudes

This is a useful dispute that could finally spur hesitant politicians into action, Libération stresses:

“For politicians, this opportunity is too good to let it pass. ... It is a salutary polemic that can move us all to make the environmental turnaround more quickly. Libération has long taken climate change very seriously and presented various options that are open to a football club of PSG's stature to reduce its carbon footprint. There are many. So, at the end of the polemic, PSG could pick itself up and set a good example for other clubs, other sports and other elites, such as those in government.”

Causeur (FR) /

Unrealistic sermonising

Appeals to switch to train transport fail to take sufficient account of the real conditions, criticises Causeur:

“All these moralising sermons that don't bother to reflect even a little on the reality of the conditions of team travel are insufferable. Moreover, we have already had the opportunity to experience this same comedy in which, in order to pretend to be virtuous, one must not hesitate to distance oneself from reality. Remember how François Hollande announced after his election as president that his government would only travel by train. But the government's security requirements made train journeys so expensive and complicated that this purely demagogic promise was, of course, never kept!”