Laurent Wauquiez announces the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region’s exit from the “zero net artificialization” system

The president of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Laurent Wauquiez (Les Républicains), announced on Saturday, September 30, his region’s exit from “zero net artificialization” (ZAN), a system piloted by the regions and which aims to stop concreteization of soils in 2050. The former president of the Republicans criticized a law “ruralicide”.

“Putting building permit decisions on rural areas under cover means that we are denying ourselves any form of future (…) I have decided that the region is withdrawing from the process. We are doing this in conjunction with the departments with whom we exchanged, he declared in Alpe d’Huez (Isère). This announcement was applauded by the members of the Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF), gathered at a congress.

An announcement made on the eve of his national political return

The ZAN law, adopted in July, entrusts the regions with the task of setting an objective of reducing the concreteization of land through their planning document, to achieve “zero net artificialization” in 2050. To do this, they will have to distribute the reduction effort between the different zones of their regional perimeter, territorial coherence schemes at the department level, up to local town planning plans and municipal maps.

Until now discreet on the national political scene, Laurent Wauquiez, who harbors presidential ambitions for 2027, is due to make his national political comeback on Sunday in Valence (Drôme) at the Young Republicans campus. In front of rural mayors, the boss of the region recalled his rural roots, before denouncing a France “two speed” between rich metropolises and impoverished countryside.