The car is a rolling business. Whether they go to work, do their shopping or take their children to school, the French prefer their personal vehicle to public transport for their trips. According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, 80.8% of the kilometers traveled by travelers in France are with this mode of transport. However, its impact on the climate is considerable. “Transport is the activity that contributes the most to France’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 2019, it represented 31% of French emissions”, notes the government in its report on the state of the environment. And of these emissions, more than half (51%) is due to car travel.
So to fight against climate change, a consequence of these CO2 emissions, “a new mobility is to be invented, more ecological and accessible to all”, assures the Agency for Ecological Transition (Ademe). But in the middle of the presidential campaign, the subject seems shunned by the contenders for the Elysée. “It’s complicated, undeniably. ‘Red caps’, ‘yellow vests’, ‘freedom convoys’… Mobility has been intrinsically linked to the freedom of individuals since the 19th century”justifies Arnaud Passalacqua, professor at the School of Urban Planning in Paris.
The car would therefore have become indispensable in the eyes of the French. To understand this, Mathieu Flonneau, historian specializing in urban history, mobility and motoring, suggests going back a century, when it was not the car that transported the French, but the train. France was then meshed with railway lines.
“The erosion of the railway network began in the 1920s with the gradual abandonment of many small lines.”
Mathieu Flonneau, historianat franceinfo
From a very dense train network, the ribs are gradually being erased, as shown in the map below. Results : “Areas find themselves landlocked. It has often been the same problem for all public services (maternity, post offices, hospitals, etc.)”, remarks the historian. He cites the examples of the Centre, Creuse, Limousin and even the Ardennes.
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Faced with this “erosion”, the car appeared as a solution. Already benefiting from a strong road network, motoring became more democratic during the post-war boom period. “The car played a big role in everyday life, it was a real social progress, a right to mobility. If the car reached this position, it is because it solved problems and she was much desired”, says Mathieu Flonneau. Evidenced by these testimonies, collected in Paris by the program “Cinq columns à la une” in October 1959. To the question “Are you happier since you got a car?”a driver responds: “Yes, because it allows me to move around and take my children and my wife to the countryside on Sundays.”
Nearly sixty years later, we find almost the same testimonies in a franceinfo article: a father living in Reuil-Malmaison explained, for example, his “puzzle between desire for ecology and everyday reality” when he is forced to use his car to get to his place of work and, on the way, drop off his two children at school.
Over the past twenty years, this preference for the car has indeed been confirmed. As shown in the infographic below, the road network increased by 14.7% between 1995 (with 962,407 km of roads) and 2019 (1,104,093 km), according to figures from the Ministry of Ecological Transition. The railway network has decreased by 13.9% over the same period (from 31,940 to 27,483 km of railway). David Zambon, director in charge of infrastructure at the Center for Studies and Expertise on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Planning (Cerema), explains it mainly by the sprawl of cities: “Urbanization, the construction of subdivisions, business areas, has been accompanied by the creation of roads. Because it is by road that you reach the doorstep.”
Bruno Marzloff, sociologist specializing in mobility, agrees: “The home has moved away from work. And today, work is largely served by car. Shops have also deserted all this rural and peri-urban fabric in favor of supermarkets.” He does not hesitate to describe the population as “captive”, in spite of herself, from the car. A study on the year 2020 relayed by The Express goes in the same direction: “The motorization rate in France, at 86%, is up on the previous year. And it even stands at 95% in rural areas. Conversely, in Paris [intra-muros]only 34% of households have a car.” This last figure can be explained in particular by the abundant supply of public transport from which the capital and the major cities benefit. And which dwindle the more we deviate from it.
“The characteristic of development dynamics is the long time. Today, we still see the consequences in many places of the choices of the 1960s”, underlines however David Zambon. If we therefore inherit today the constructions of several decades ago, the logics have changed recently, according to this specialist. He first quotes the “Climate and Resilience” law, passed in 2020, setting in particular the objective of reaching by 2050 “the absence of any net artificialization of the soil”that is to say construction on land that was formerly in its natural state.
Mechanically, if we have to redevelop already existing built spaces, we will need less new roads.
David Zambon, Deputy Director of Ceremaat franceinfo
The electric car is also part of the solutions considered. With greenhouse gas emissions “two to six times less” higher than its thermal cousin, according to Ademe, it has seen its sales climb in recent years. “The electric vehicle market was very dynamic in 2020 with a 259% increase in sales compared to 2019”reports the Agency for Ecological Transition.
The deputy director of Cerema also mentions the other increasingly developed uses on the roads: “We are talking about cars, but buses, bicycles and trams also pass there!” This cleaner transport has seen its number of passenger-kilometres, the unit of measurement which studies the transport of a passenger over one kilometre, increase by 24% between 2002 (48.8 billion kilometres) and 2019 (60.7 billion), still according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Cycle routes and greenways have increased from 6,900 km in 2011 to 17,515 km in 2019.
For SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou, the answer also goes through the train. “Without a strong modal shift from road to train, the objective of the Paris agreement will be unattainable”he pleaded on February 10 with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, an activist for “double the place of the train for a real climate transition”.
So many transformations that are going in the right direction, according to David Zambon. “The mobility orientation law [en vigueur depuis décembre 2019] has incorporated these orientations into public policies. In France, it had been more than thirty years since we had had a law on transport and mobility issues”since the Law of orientation of interior transport in 1982, he rejoices.
But all these specialists call for reflection to go further. It’s necessary “changing the land use model” and start a “return of local services” for Bruno Marzloff. Bakers’ vans, outpatient care units, return of city shops… “The challenge is to irrigate the territory to make priority services accessible”he defends. Mobility and urban policy specialist Arnaud Passalacqua is also campaigning for a change in thinking.
There is little focus on the imaginaries linked to the car: speed, immediacy, freedom… Faced with the limits of the world that we reach, but that we do not accept, this remains taboo.
Arnaud Passalacqua, urban plannerat franceinfo
Will all this ongoing work and thinking be enough to change the trend and reduce passenger car traffic by 2% between 2015 and 2050, as called for by the National Low Carbon Strategy? “The fundamental movement is there. I don’t know if we are up to the challenges, but we are working on it”concludes the director of Cerema in charge of infrastructure.