A “social bomb”. This is how Ian Brossat, spokesperson for the communist presidential candidate, described the deployment in France of low-emission zones. “Millions of cars will be banned from circulation in the big metropolises because they pollute too much, in all of 40 big metropolises by 2025, it’s a social bomb because these ten million cars belong to low-income households who are going to be placed under house arrest”, detailed Ian Brossat, interviewed Monday, January 31, on Radio J.
The low emission zones (ZFE) to which Ian Brossat refers are delimited territories in which the most polluting vehicles are not allowed to drive, according to criteria set locally. Six ZFEs are already in place to date (Greater Paris Metropolis, Lyon Metropolis, Grenoble-Alpes Metropolis, Reims, Rouen and Strasbourg). But the climate and resilience law requires extending this system to all urban areas with more than 150,000 inhabitants by 2025. Thus, 43 ZFEs must have been created within three years.
To assert that ten million cars will be banned from circulation by 2025, Ian Brossat assumes that all cars with a Crit’air sticker 3, 4 or 5 will be banned in all ZFEs in 2025. Except that this will not necessarily be the case. The law indeed leaves a freedom of application to the agglomerations, provided that the pollution thresholds are not exceeded.
“The Climate and Resilience Law provides for measures for private cars only in the territories in a situation of overrun. For the 33 other territories, it is at the discretion of the community and according to the relevance of the restrictions with regard to the local context and air quality”explains the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
For the territories which will be in excess of the regulatory thresholds, (three years of excess over the past five years), the law will effectively impose a ban on the circulation of cars with Crit’air 5 stickers in 2023, Crit’air 4 in 2024 and Crit’air 3 in 2025.
According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, in 2023 Paris and Lyon will be “for sure” overtaking, Rouen, Marseille and Toulouse could also “potentially” being. If we stick to this scenario and these cities do not rectify their trajectory, 3.7 million vehicles could be affected by a certain traffic ban in 2025.