While the mayor of Paris intended to ban Crit’Air 3 vehicles in the spring of next year, and diesels by 2024, the government announced on Tuesday that Crit’Air 3s will only be banned by 2025 in Low Emission Zones (ZFE).
The Crit’Air vignette calendar has once again been shaken up. Owners of Crit’Air 3 vehicles who had to give up driving in the Ile-de-France ZFE by the end of 2023 will have at least one more year to circulate.
The schedule is now as follows: from January 1, 2023, Crit’Air 5 vehicles (diesel vehicles produced before 2001) will be prohibited. On January 1, 2024, it will be the turn of the Crit’Air 4 (diesel before 2006) then the Crit’Air 3 (diesel before 2011 and petrol before 2006) on January 1, 2025.
“We had planned it for 2023. The government has planned it for 2025, which gives us time to prepare the installation of the cameras and to have the Crit’Air 3 and the automated sanctions at the same time”explains Patrick Ollier, President of the Métropole du Grand Paris (in charge of setting up the ZFE).
Another measure announced: the deployment of automatic controls. Until now, fines were applied during rare roadside checks. “We need about 200 cameras, they will be installed by 2024, that’s very good news. They will be installed randomly in the ZFE area”continues Patrick Ollier.
However, for Tony Renucci, director general of the Respire association, these announcements remain very theoretical. “I have heard from public authorities that video-verbalization poses many technical problems”. If he welcomes the announcement of zero-rate loan offers for low-income households to buy new vehicles, he is not convinced of the success of the measure.
“There are holes in the racket. It is surprising not to take into account the mass, the consumption as well as the maintenance of the vehicle in the attribution of the Crit’Air sticker. How is it that recent SUVs are better classified than lighter and older vehicles?, says Tony Renucci. According to the latter, “it would be better to discriminate on the type of use than the type of vehicle”.
Because the ZFE, if it remains largely theoretical for many Ile-de-France residents, may well upset the owners of thermal vehicles and their wallets. This low-emissions zone concerns millions of households in Île-de-France: 5 million people live within the perimeter (inside the A86) and 12 million if we count all the inhabitants. of the region.
The mayor of Paris, if it is not competent in the matter, still hoped that the schedule it had put in place would be respected. By adopting it in 2015, the capital was the first city in France to have a ZFE. But a law in 2012 withdrew this prerogative to entrust it to the Métropole du Grand Paris.
“Today we are suffering from the inaction of successive governments for years. Inaction, in particular, to support the most modest to change vehicles or, better still, to have alternatives to the individual car. Industrial lobbies remain far too powerful , and national officials far too servile towards them. To the detriment, once again, of our health”claims David Belliard at Monde.
Condemned once again this month for inaction in the face of air pollution, the government seems to have decided to give more time to owners of old vehicles.
A parliamentary mission which submitted its work on Wednesday thus recommends taking measures to support the most modest households and the inhabitants of rural and peri-urban municipalities in order to facilitate their access to low-emission zones.
According to an INSEE survey published in 2019, “38% of the poorest households have a vehicle classified Crit’Air 4 or 5 (10% among the richest households)”note the deputies Bruno Millienne (Modem) and Gérard Leseul (PS), authors of the report.
The inhabitants of rural or peri-urban areas also own these polluting vehicles more often (25%) than the inhabitants of the “urban unit of Paris” for example (10%).
However, these inhabitants have only very little been associated with the discussions surrounding the establishment of the EPZs, deplore the two deputies.
Source: AFP
