It’s now official: French MPs have voted to end Low Emission Zones, which were designed to keep the most polluting vehicles out of major cities. This is a major defeat for the government, which had supported the measure for several years.
A 2019 law required large urban areas to create Low Emission Zones that would ban polluting cars based on their engine type and age. The measure has been strongly criticised ever since its inception, as it is seen by both the Right and the Left as a tool for social segregation.
Members of the Rassemblement National (RN) managed to propose and pass an article repealing the LEZs, which was approved on May 28th. This article was part of a broader bill on “simplifying economic life.” On Tuesday, June 17th, the vote on the entire bill by a majority of MPs confirmed the previous votes, which were all in favour of abolishing LEZs.
The simplification bill had been on the parliamentary agenda for many months. Its examination was suspended on several occasions, reflecting the chaotic nature of a ‘catch-all’ text dealing with disparate and unrelated subjects. Its adoption was therefore not guaranteed and was decided by a narrow majority: 275 in favour, 252 against, with 21 abstentions.
On the right, the RN welcomed a “cultural victory against punitive environmentalism,” in the words of MP Pierre Meurin. The votes of the RN and its allies were joined by those of Les Républicains. On the left, MPs overwhelmingly rejected the text, which they denounced as a law inspired by the policies of Elon Musk in the United States and Javier Milei in Argentina.
Other restrictive environmental measures were also abandoned thanks to the adoption of this law.
For Macron’s camp, this is a clear setback, as the leader of the Renaissance MPs, Gabriel Attal, failed to enforce party discipline. The vote among centrist MPs was in fact split between those for and against. “This vote is a total defeat for Gabriel Attal. It proves that he has no control over the group,” a Macronist MP told Le Figaro.
The Minister for Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, regretted that “the fight against climate change and pollution” had become “a variable to be adjusted for short-term political calculations.”
The fight is not quite over yet. The Senate and the National Assembly have each adopted very different versions of the text, which must now be reconciled between the two chambers: there is a risk, albeit a small one, that the bill to repeal the LEZs will ultimately be reintroduced. “You’ll see, this text will never get through,” predicts one minister. Whatever the outcome, the political turmoil surrounding itis proves that consensus on climate issues is now a distant memory.
