More and more voices are being raised against EPZs, these Low Emission Zones designed to reduce pollution in cities. The government is caught in the trap of an ambitious but inevitably unpopular reform. Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political editorial
On the ZFEs, the tone rises from 1er January. Since vehicles with Crit’Air 5 stickers have been banned from around ten cities. However, no one is taken by surprise: there were two laws, in 2019 and 2021. Two very clear laws: the State sets up the framework for EPZs, but it is the big cities or the metropolis that have control over the deployment of these areas.
>> To read: where is the implementation of ZFEs in France?
Except that, now that we are in the hard, communities are moving back. The most emblematic report: the decision of the environmentalist president of the Lyon metropolis, who postponed the ban on diesel vehicles to 2028. Part of the left applauds and denounces ZFEs which would only penalize the poorest.
This is of course partly true. When you don’t have the means to buy a cleaner car, you are potentially excluded from these areas. So yes, we must support the most precarious and perhaps also remember that no one is obliged to buy an electric vehicle. There is a lot of help available, interest-free loans… You can even receive bonuses to switch from an old diesel to a more recent petrol vehicle. No one knows.
However, ecologists or communists denounce anti-social EPZs. They oppose “end of the month” and “end of the world” and one can wonder about the position of the left vis-a-vis these Low Emission Zones.
The ecological transition will require unpopular measures
We cannot constantly castigate the state’s climate inaction and back down when it comes to taking unpopular measures on the subject. Because yes, the ecological transition will require unpopular measures. It is always interesting to see that those who plead for restrictions on freedoms in the name of the climate are rarely those who bear the political and social consequences.
Note also that in this ZFE cocktail, we also have the communities, very happy to make the State wear the hat. While they are the ones who decide on the timetable and any derogations. In Strasbourg, 24 visits per year are possible for crit’Air 5.
Finally, we have the government which sins by naivety, refusing to see that these areas are politically explosive. We touch on the car, on purchasing power, it is at the “Yellow Vests” level. The state let these EPZs become unreadable with almost as many rules as zones. We do not understand anything anymore.
The EPZs could have been a great social project. It has become a technocratic measure that no one accepts anymore. The issue is not only political: fine particles cause 40,000 deaths each year in France.