The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region Laurent Wauquiez called on the government on Thursday to “put back on the table” the law against the concreteization of soils, without going so far as to repeat that it would leave the system.
I am very doubtful about this text, insisted the LR elected official during the regional Conference of the Parties (COP), Lyon, in the presence of the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Bchu. We need to get back to talking, he added.
In September Laurent Wauquiez launched a revolt against the 2021 Climate Law, the objective of which is to achieve zero net artificialization (ZAN) of soils in 2050, announcing that his region was withdrawing from the system.
He had incurred the wrath of the government. But on Thursday, Christophe Bchu said he was convinced that the president of the region would finally apply the law, after having upped the ante.
This requires the regions to integrate the objective of land sobriety into their development plans by November 2024.
At the end of the meeting, Laurent Wauquiez, potential right-wing presidential candidate, told the press that he had confidence in the fact that Christophe Bchu could move his law forward, that it would start again.
As it stands, I have this somewhat crazy hope that we will be heard and that by June, in conjunction with the Senate, we can correct what is not working, suggested Mr. Wauquiez.
The minister said on the occasion of this meeting that he wanted to fully promote cooperation between the State and the territories but within the current framework. Everywhere we go we are able to find solutions in the current text, he concluded.
On Tuesday, Mr. Wauquiez sent a letter to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, signed by more than 2,000 elected officials from his region, to denounce the technocratic nature of the ZAN law.
At the beginning of December, 200 mayors of the region had on the contrary signed an article in Le Monde against the coup by the president of the region.