Maya Trémolet, edited by Laura Laplaud / Photo credit: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
They are characterized as “social bombs”. The ZFE, the low emission zones, plans to free the agglomerations of more than 150,000 inhabitants from the most polluting vehicles from 2025. But the measure does not convince the opposition like a large part of the French.
The Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, and the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune, receive the results of the consultation on the ZFEs this Monday. The executive could relax the low emission zones – already in place in 11 agglomerations – and extend it to all agglomerations of more than 150,000 inhabitants by 2025. A schedule impossible to keep, knowing that the measure is already poorly respected and decried by the French.
“Highly excluded areas”?
Its detractors have renamed it “high exclusion zones”. EPZs, low emission zones are far from unanimous. Nearly nine out of ten French people are opposed to it.
On the side of the political sphere, the opposition (the PCF and La France insoumise) denounces the social divide, the exclusion of precarious people and condemns the management of ZFEs by the government. “The government says that it must be applied to each metropolis and manage, we come to aberrations, we arrive at a social bomb. We must not put the cart before the horse. First, we put the alternatives and then we will put the ZFEs”, advances LFI deputy Sylvain Carrière.
The executive’s speech struggles to convince
Within the majority, the opposition is criticized for its way of approaching the subject and various solutions are promised, as asserted by the deputy MoDem Bruno Millienne. “If you ask people if they want an effective fight against air pollution, 80% of them answer you the same thing. There are plenty of solutions that are coming and that will ensure that no one is left behind. the road,” he explains.
An optimistic speech that struggles to convince. The National Rally went so far as to table an amendment to abolish the ZFEs. Three weeks ago, in the Senate, a report from the Republicans pleaded to postpone their implementation to 2030 instead of 2025.