Europe is fighting hard short haul flights, many of which are now just plain down illegal. Several countries, including France, have already banned short haul flights of less than 2h30.
I see this "high speed trains" push as related to the attack by the EU on short haul flights.
So no matter if we find that cheap flights do beat trains hands down or not, in a near future there may not be any choice: and the choice seems like it's going to be train.
“Many” is a complete misrepresentation.
Three routes within France and 2 within Austria. This is an absolutely minuscule percentage of EU flights.
(Austria’s latest “ban” of Vienna-Salzburg was part of a bailout deal so probably was to do with cost cutting too.)
Tell me how riding a sleeping train for 10 hours is worse than that. Even though my example is a little exaggerated for drama purposes, I still would prefer a night train to the 5-6 hour middle of the day disruption and stress that flying is. I'm pretty sure that there are many like me.
With a flight there is 2 hours of standing queueing or waiting in a "gate", then another 30 minutes of dead time at takeoff and landing where you can't do anything either.