If France does not put measures in place to reduce its level of air pollution, it risks paying a fine of several million euros. And this for having exceeded since 2010 “systematically and persistently” the threshold limit in the air of nitrogen dioxide, according to European justice.
France, a bad student in the fight against air pollution. This is the observation drawn up by European justice which, in a decision rendered on Thursday, October 24, accuses France of having exceeded since 2010 “systematically and persistently” the threshold limit in the air of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a polluting gas mainly from diesel engines. After nearly ten years of warning, the European Commission took the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last year. France must now quickly put in place measures to reduce air pollution, at the risk of having to pay a fine of several million euros.
Major cities particularly affected
“The government is determined to quickly and sustainably improve air quality, which is a public and environmental health imperative,” replied the Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition, in a press release. Twenty-four French areas and agglomerations are concerned, such as Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Strasbourg or the Alpine valley of the Arve, a road axis towards Italy. However, France claims to have divided the number of areas concerned by two (11 in 2018). But for the judges of the CJEU, “the fact of exceeding the limit values for nitrogen dioxide in the ambient air is sufficient in itself to be able to find a breach.”
The pollution threshold exceeded for seven years
Germany and the United Kingdom are also member states against which Brussels has decided to act. European legislation provides that if the air pollution rate is exceeded, the country in question must draw up a plan relating to air quality, and ensure that the period of the overrun is “the longest as short as possible”. However, for the CJEU, it lasted for “seven consecutive years”. The French government, for its part, is nevertheless putting forward a series of measures already taken: support for the renewal of the car fleet, development of the network of electrical terminals, or even support for the energy renovation of housing. In total, twenty countries of the European Union are targeted by an infringement procedure in terms of air quality, fine particles included. According to the latest report from theEuropean Environment Agency on Air Quality published in October, nitrogen dioxide causes 68,000 deaths each year in the European Union, including 7,500 in France.
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