On December 5th, returning from New Caledonia, the Prime Minister and his team hired a private plane to travel in better conditions. According to the Prime Minister, there was a timetable and security constraint.
Edouard Philippe "assumes" the 350 000€ disbursed for charter a private flight, between Tokyo and Paris, to bring him and his delegation of about fifty people, from New Caledonia.
He acknowledged that it's "complicated" and "expensive" to move a Prime Minister. " I perfectly understand both the surprise and the questions that the French are asking", he explained on RTL ( French media). According to him, this decision was justified by the fact that he needed to be back in France before the departure of Emmanuel Macron ( President of France) in Algeria on December 6th in the morning.
On the night of December 5 to 6, during a technical stopover in Tokyo of an Air Force A340 that brought him back with several ministers and about sixty people in mainland France, the Prime Minister and a broad part of the passengers boarded another A340 at first-class seats. This plane landed in Paris at 7:30am two hours before the other A340 of the army, arrived almost empty. " We knew there was no commercial flight at the time we were going in. And we knew we had to come back for an imperative element that's that the president would leave on Wednesday morning of our return", He added.
" It's deadfully expensive and I am fully aware of it. "
For Edouard Philippe, moving a Prime Minister is complicated. "If you had invited him ( to RTL), i would ave come by subway, it would have cost me 1,90 euros or 2. But [...] I arrived with four vehicles, bikers, 15 people, wth a doctor and a transmitter who constantly follow me, Cause it's the regime given to a Prime Minister to be systematically able to react" was justified.
" It's costing a lot of money and I'm perfectly aware of it, I'm so aware that I try to make it possible, as the feeling of this photo on Tokyo-Paris can, to limit costs" according to him.
A little earlier, Matignon said that the cost of this trip was 30% lower than a similar trip made by Manuel Valls in 2016.
Measured indignation of Policies.
Manuel Valls recognizes that a " displacement of this type is always very expensive".
Some policies have gone up a niche. On France Inter ( French media), Stéphane Le Froll, former Minister of Agriculture, believes that " nothing explains the expense of 350 000 euros".
For George Fenech, the national secretary LR, the price of this trip is " 20 years of a person who touches the SMIC".
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