It’s a timely meeting: the day after the green wave at the municipal level, Emmanuel Macron gives answers on Monday “strong“to the proposals, sometimes controversial, of the 150 members of the Citizen’s Climate Convention (CCC) that he receives at the Elysée Palace.
It is in the green park of the presidential palace that the Head of State will welcome these French people from the four corners of the country whom he had instructed last year to think about a package of solutions against global warming.
This meeting, planned for a long time, comes a few hours after the shock caused by the victories of environmentalists in several big cities like Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Marseille.
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Estimating that the “green wave“Sunday is a”French state of mind barometer“and shows that”ecology is at the heart of their concerns“, the head of state will do Monday”a very offensive speech“with”an asserted ecological ambition“, which will be decisive for the future, according to his relatives.
“There are many proposals“on the table and”the president will play on the whole register“of these measures, said the presidency.
The meeting will be introduced at 11 a.m. by Elisabeth Borne, Minister for the Ecological Transition, before six randomly selected members of the CCC will take the floor to defend the 149 proposals arising from their work.
The head of state knows he is eagerly awaited. Firstly, by the 150 members of the CCC who took this unprecedented exercise in participatory democracy seriously, which they have led since last fall.
“Now is the time to act“Laurence Tubiana, who co-chaired the process, told JDD on Sunday.”We live in a rocking moment“for the climate and”it is folly to postpone this turning point“, she warned.
On the political level, the main unknown relates to a possible referendum, which would be the first to be held in France since the one who had seen the victory of “non“on the European constitution in 2005. But, warned the Elysee, the work of the CCC”is not limited to the referendum question“.
Motorways at 110 km / h
The Convention called on the executive to submit to a referendum the introduction of the fight against global warming into the Constitution and the creation of a crime “ecocide“.
But this track does not gather much support in the political class, in particular within the majority, which pleads rather for a consultation on more concrete proposals of the Convention.
One of them is particularly controversial: the reduction of maximum speed on motorways from 130 to 110 km / h.
Two years after the controversy over 80 km / h, it is the only one to be massively rejected by the French, according to polls. Thus, if 62% of the people polled last week by Odoxa generally approved the proposals, it was criticized by 74% of them.
In response, Laurence Tubiana claims that all the work of the Commission is not “taken hostage“by this measure.
“It’s a proposition out of 149, so if we wanted to crystallize opinion we wouldn’t have done better“, also denounced director Europe Cyril Dion on Europe 1,”guarantor“of the CCC.
“We are being called Khmer Green, wanting an ecological dictatorship“, he regretted.
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In their report, the members of the Convention acknowledge that some of their proposals “may seem extreme“, but warn that they may be”still insufficient to reach the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030“that the executive set for them.
If they are selected, their proposals will have an impact on economic and daily life since they relate to the comprehensive and compulsory thermal renovation of buildings, the reduction of the space for the private car, the taxation of ultra-transformed food or a ban on GMO seeds or heated terraces …
Emmanuel Macron finds himself faced with difficult choices, which are added to those, extremely expensive, that he must take to get France out of the recession into which the Covid-19 crisis plunged him.
For Laurence Tubiana, the president must grasp this very specific context to “take advantage to redirect our economy“, through “the amending finance law for 2020 and in the budget for 2021“.
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