Low Emission Zones: "Faced with this fiasco, we must implement a pact that no longer pits mobility against air quality"

The vote by a heterogeneous majority of MPs for the pure and simple abolition of low emission zones (LEZs), during Parliament's examination of the so-called economic simplification bill, constitutes the umpteenth avatar of the current ecological backlash, where environmental ambition is relegated to the background of public policies.

This vote comes in a context of general questioning of ecological policies in France and other countries, but it should not make us forget that the French system, adopted in 2018, has never really been supported by the State and successive governments for seven years: they have tried to shift the responsibility onto local authorities, but without ever giving them the necessary operational resources.

This is the case with "automated penalty control" (automatic radars capable of detecting the most polluting vehicles), which exists in many other European countries but is still not implemented in France even though local authorities are demanding it from the State, or even with financial support, with the government abolishing, in December 2024, the conversion bonus for the purchase of a new vehicle.

The lack of political will at the State level and the very absence of education on the interest of a global action in favor of the air quality of the major French metropolitan areas have seriously harmed the system, presented as the emanation of an ecology described as "punitive" by opponents of ecology, on the right and the extreme right in the first place.

But the punishment is there: air pollution kills, it must be remembered, and the poorest populations are the first victims, because they are the ones who live closest to major roads and motorways, where atmospheric pollutants emitted by motorized traffic are concentrated. The Council of State has also sanctioned the French State three times in 2021, 2022 and 2023 with financial penalties of several tens of millions of euros for non-compliance with the air quality values ​​set by the European Commission.

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