The government therefore announced this Saturday, March 12, a discount of fifteen cents per liter of fuel purchased, from April 1, to compensate for successive increases in the price of energy. We talk about it with the sociologist Jean Viard.
franceinfo: Will the rise in energy prices force us to make choices that we have not accepted to make so far for the climate?
John Viard: We are entering a zone of turbulence which will be enormous. We’re talking about energy, tomorrow we’re going to talk about the price of bread, etc. Everyone has to think that, because if we’re just yelling about the increases, saying that the state can pay, the state, that is to say our taxes, we don’t won’t make it. We are in a war situation. We have to accept this situation, it’s not us who imposed it, it’s the Russians. And so, indeed, it will lead to an upheaval in consumption patterns, at least in the short term, perhaps in the long term. That’s the first thing.
Afterwards, there is an emergency on fuels, including for the most modest people. And so, there is a measure that has been taken. It’s just technical. They took a measure that avoids making a law. That’s the backdrop. The truth is that there have been times when oil was more expensive than it is today. But we bought it cheaper. Why ? But because little by little, we have increased fuel taxes to fight against global warming, and therefore we cannot stop this fight, on the pretext that there is another fight.
So we have to protect the most vulnerable who are caught between global warming and the war in Ukraine. And that’s why there are more charges on oil, gasoline, etc. We are engaged in the fight against global warming. It’s not tomorrow, it’s already today.
But it’s a financial pressure on the most modest, it’s a very clear choice?
But of course, it is clear that it is the most modest who bear the greatest price. We must remember that 60% of people can only go to work by car, and that’s what we missed with the yellow vests. The Yellow Vests, that had angered part of France, because it was a political decision – if I am being mean, of urban sores – which in fact concerned working-class peri-urban people. So there was a sense of disregard for an unfamiliar way of life. There, we are not in the same situation. 79% of French people are in solidarity with Ukraine because of this war. There are still 21% who are against it, you have to be careful.
You address the situation of the war in Ukraine, and it’s interesting because what we also hear is that consuming too much energy now is partly financing Putin’s war. There will be a price to pay in France for this war. Does that mean that we have to reduce our consumption out of moral duty, in a way, and that in this respect, that can boost the effort towards an ecological transition? ?
All those who can reduce their consumption and with the feeling of the solidarity cost, lower the heating by two degrees yes, light their fireplace rather than their oil stove, or even drive at 110 km/h on the motorways, it reduces by 20% the consumption. There are small measures like that that are not going to change the schmilblick, but what is happening is horrible, because we see people dying on television every day, and since there is the Russian nuclear umbrella, we can’t do anything. So we are in a situation of shame in reality, one and all, because we have only one desire, it is: let’s put things in order! We can not.
So we have to manage this shame by making perhaps symbolic gestures. It can be welcoming people, it can be giving money, it can be restricting some of our consumption. Afterwards, it’s true that there are some who can’t do it, but there are probably fewer than those who will complain. This is why we must also lead public opinion to a moral rearmament in a situation where, basically, we all had the impression that there would be neither war nor pandemic, and unfortunately, there is both war and pandemic.