However, we have seen it with the consultations on the metro which do not succeed, despite their plebiscite, we see it in the way of dealing with our mayors and local elected officials, consultation is not the strong point of environmentalists at the head of our Métropole de Lyon.
But perhaps the last ipsos survey commissioned by LyonMag shook some staffs who realized that what we had been saying for 3 years now was not far-fetched and, on the contrary, well-founded. Because 75% of Lyonnais are unfavorable to the action of the mayor EELV of Lyon and perhaps just as much or even more for the Metropolitan Executive.
The joke of the President of the Metropolis on the ZFE proves it. The prohibition of Crit’Air 2 on our territory by going faster than what the law provides is heresy in several respects. SYTRAL has a disappointing mandate plan with regard to its strong investment capacities and low debt. Our automotive industry is one of the most powerful in the world and we cannot scuttle it without giving it time to lead its transition. Subsidiary question: where will the scrapped vehicles of our territories go? Household purchasing power is declining. The rise in energy costs is hitting the French hard, who cannot afford to make ends meet; rent arrears have never been so high.
And what do we do? They are forbidden the only means of locomotion, for lack of a structuring means of public transport in the first ring of the agglomeration.
Yes, climate issues oblige us. More than ever, we must take the necessary decisions so as not to jeopardize the future of the generations that follow. But always “hitting the same”, the middle classes, is not up to what we are entitled to expect from a real political project.
Occupying political responsibilities on whatever side one is obliged to and I assume to say that the subjects of air quality go beyond divisions. I refuse, however, that it excludes our less well-off compatriots who have no other means than to travel with their car. For this middle class on the tangent, it is unbearable.
Since the start of discussions on these serious subjects, our position has always been consistent. Moreover, elected from Caluire-et-Cuire, I belong to a majority that came out among the first municipalities of the Metropolis to adopt the ZFE which at the time only concerned professionals.
Our time allows neither radicality nor dogma. We must accompany a transition. Imposing it only arouses incomprehension and threatens to raise the worst social conflicts when we must plead for appeasement. Our society is far too fractured and our institutions far too often attacked, in particular by the NUPES, which has no other will than to deconstruct us.
Even today, it is clear that the information on the ZFE for the Grands Lyonnais lacks clarity. They merge into a nebula (voluntarily maintained?) that only a few insiders master.
Many are those who are unaware of her calendar, what she foresees. No one knows its perimeter. Despite the opposition’s proposals, the president of the Metropolis has still not written to the owners of private vehicles to inform them of the restrictions to come.
It is however a serious subject since it has consequences for most households in our metropolis and that is not to mention peripheral territories such as North Isère or the department of Ain. What will we say to people who come to Lyon to work or consume? We are not deploying any new structuring transport, we are closing the relay parks but above all, icing on the cake, we no longer want you with your too polluting car. Is it really the Metropolis that we want? A metropolis that excludes?
On average, in each city of the Metropolis and depending on the CSP, the ZFE will wipe out between 50 and 70% of the car fleet.
In addition to being a low blow to the purchasing power of Greater Lyonnais who are already in bad shape, it is environmental nonsense, no more and no less the planned obsolescence of almost new vehicles sold at this very moment, in the catalog of the different brands.
Many of us legitimately wonder: how in this period of crisis where car dealerships are struggling to provide themselves with vehicles and spare parts, are things materially feasible? It’s unrealistic.
Today, if we take the figures with the central perimeter of the ZFE, i.e. Lyon, Villeurbanne, Caluire and Cuire and partly Bron and Vénissieux, 230,000 vehicles should be scrapped by 2026. But in an enlargement scenario that would concern the perimeter of our entire Metropolis out of our 59 municipalities, this could lead to the elimination of 450,000 vehicles.
This figure is also without taking into account all the territories bordering Lyon Metropolis, such as the communities of communes of Beaujolais, Pays de l’Arbresle, Vallée du Garon, Pays Mornantais, Pays de Ozon, CCEL, Côtière de l’Ain, etc. 685,000 vehicles and just as many households concerned.
With satisfaction therefore, I read the declarations of the President of the Metropolis who reconsiders his desire to ban the Crit Air 2 from 2026 by postponing this decision to 2028. The lines can and must still move and if it is so natural to to listen as the latter claims in Tribune de Lyon, the president of the Metropolis should be more attentive to local elected officials who have been offering a less constrained calendar for months.
That would have saved many months of debate. Let’s bet that this listening will continue towards local elected officials who know well because they live them, the realities of the inhabitants of our Metropolis.
Bastien Joint
Delegate municipal councilor (LR) in Caluire-et-Cuire
