“ We have a problem with cars in this country”declared Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, in May 2023. “I love the car”replied to him in September of the same year the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. We would therefore have to choose a camp, for or against the car, even though the answer to this question is obvious: it depends on the situation.
As is often the case in France, the debates lock thought into binary choices and quickly take on an almost religious dimension: for many activists, the automobile is an object that must either be eradicated or defended at all costs. A more agnostic approach could focus not on the means, but on the objectives of a mobility policy ambitious, by allowing everyone to travel to work, study, eat, take care of themselves, have fun or meet within reasonable timeframes and at reasonable costs, and by significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The car has become a democratic object. According to figures from the French Road Union, 85% of households have one and the 15% who do not have one are, for the most part, urban dwellers benefiting from alternatives. Its success is based on its intrinsic performance: it allows you to go anywhere, at any time, at high speeds and at acceptable costs. The French were thus able to seek further away what they could not find closer, in particular work and housing. For the vast majority of French people, the car has become a commodity: it is no longer an object of social differentiation.
The automobile, however, has two major disadvantages: it consumes a lot of public space in the city, which explains the policies deployed since the mid-1980s with the revival of the tram and, more recently, the bicycle, which reflects a new road sharing. Above all, it is one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
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The geography of housing and jobs shows that it is the links between peri-urban areas and urban areas which constitute the majority of car emissions. It is therefore on these links that, tomorrow, we will have to deploy efficient public transport. Wherever public space is not a rare resource, particularly in rural areas, it is through electric cars that we will be able to ensure carbon-free accessibility.
The difficulty is that the current supply of public transport between peri-urban areas and urban areas is lower than demand and that the electric car, which is still expensive, has not become “democratized”. It is therefore not surprising that thermal cars are still used: the only place where we can do without them is the heart of large cities.
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