Recover low-polluting cars from the conversion bonus to rent them at lower cost to the most precarious in rural areas: an environmental law to this effect was adopted on Wednesday December 13 in the Senate.
“Tens of thousands of vehicles are being scrapped even though millions of fellow citizens have no means of transportation in rural areas. » Faced with this paradoxical observation, Senator Jacques Fernique proposed a measure voted on unanimously in the upper house, dominated by the right and the center, with the interested support of the government.
The system provides that local authorities, through the mobility organizing authorities (AOM), can recover certain vehicles eligible for the conversion bonus, to pass them on to people “socially disadvantaged” through vehicle rental systems “at a low price” in rural areas, sometimes for a few dozen euros per month.
The conversion bonus system allows individuals, subject to income conditions, to obtain assistance to acquire a low-polluting vehicle in exchange for scrapping an old vehicle. According to the Senate mechanism, gasoline vehicles classified as “Crit’Air 3” or less would be affected. Several associations and other solidarity garages throughout France already offer this type of rental service at lower cost for the most vulnerable, relying mainly on vehicle donations. Structures which often struggle to renovate their fleet.
“It is the emblematic text of field ecology: it is practical, it is concrete, it is useful and there is, behind it, a certain ecological interest”, supported the president of the environmental group Guillaume Gontard. The government was very interested in the proposal, even if it would have preferred to require that reused vehicles undergo a “retrofit” aimed at converting them into electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. An amendment rejected by the Senate.
“Decontaminating in part, even if it is not a perfect decarbonization solution, is already making progressexplained the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune. We would undoubtedly have targeted the system more (…) but I will support this bill with a number of necessary improvements. »
The senatorial bill will now have to continue its journey through the National Assembly, potentially in a parliamentary niche reserved for the environmental group, before being definitively adopted.