Dince the creation, in 1971, of the ministry in charge of the environment, and even if progress has been made on many points, the ability of public authorities to take charge of ecological issues is increasingly called into question. . Witness, for example, the concerns of young people or the legal actions taken against the State.
The times have changed. They call for a profound adaptation of the institutions and instruments of public action. The idea of ecological planning may be good, but there still needs to be governance to design, implement, monitor and evaluate it. The same causes producing the same effects, a new plan, even global, will not settle the question.
There is urgency, in terms of ecology of course, but also from a democratic point of view, as the discrepancies observed in relation to the announced objectives undermine the credibility of public action. Multiple commitments have been made by France, concerning the climate, the quality of water or air, biodiversity.
A lack of coherence in the structures
To date, practically no objective has been met. These persistent discrepancies are due to the intensity of the interests involved and the very difficulty of the problems, but they also stem from failures of governance. A question that is all the more crucial since ecological issues are characterized by their technicality, but also their transversality, which comes up against traditional organizations and policies, which are sectoral.
Every day, our fellow citizens point to examples of what they perceive as discrepancies between orientations and actions, giving the feeling of contradiction and lack of overall coherence. It is about the divorce between the orientations in agriculture and the ecological ambition, already manifest during the publication of the National Strategic Plan declining the common agricultural policy (CAP) and which is likely to worsen following the consecutive reorientations to the Ukrainian conflict.
The lack of coherence in the organization of structures, the juxtaposition of bodies and missions prevent the State from taking action on an appropriate scale and at the right pace. This de facto situation leaves too much room for the interplay of interests of all kinds, and leads to incomprehension among citizens and the risk of demobilization of public and private actors.
Rethinking modes of coordination
Whether or not the Prime Minister is himself in charge of ecology, a set of reforms within the State is essential. First, to build upstream the legitimacy of the arbitrations to be made. The public consultation procedures must be organized into a real system, which federates the existing procedures, in particular by entrusting an independent administrative authority – which could be the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) – with the task of defining the scope of the decisions that have an impact on the environment and therefore give rise to public participation.
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