A meeting with representatives of the Citizen's Climate Convention at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, September 30, 2020. -

Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Emmanuel Macron meets Monday the Citizen's Convention for the Climate (CCC) for discussions that promise to be lively, against a backdrop of tensions around a possible unraveling of their proposals to fight against global warming.

This third meeting since the beginning of the year will, according to the presidential entourage, be the occasion for a "frank and direct discussion" between the president and the 150 members of the Convention, present at the Cese (Economic, Social and environmental) in Paris or by videoconference.

From 5 pm, Emmanuel Macron "will listen to them, answer them and could announce the last arbitrations" before the presentation of the climate bill expected at the end of January.

Neither the "governance committee" of the CCC, nor the "guarantors", including the director and environmental activist Cyril Dion with whom the Head of State recently exchanged spades, will be present.

The meeting, at the initiative of the Elysée, does not enter into the process planned for the convention, which will hold a final session after the translation of its measures, to assess the response of the executive.

The State had undertaken to take back "without filter" 146 of the 149 proposals of the CCC

Emmanuel Macron, who launched this unprecedented exercise in French political life at the end of the “yellow vests” crisis, triggered by the creation of a carbon tax on fuels, had met the CCC for the first time on January 10, halfway through its work.

He then assured its members that "strong decisions" would be taken on the basis of their proposals, some of which could be submitted to referendum, an idea still on the table. 

They then met at the end of June at the Elysee Palace, the Head of State committing to resume "unfiltered" 146 of the 149 proposals of the CCC, aimed at reducing by at least 40% gas emissions. greenhouse effect of France "in a spirit of social justice".

But since then, the citizens drawn by lot and who have worked hard for nine months, have regretted the lack of "general ambition" for the climate and "clear support" from the executive for their proposals.

Macron's interview on Brut angered the CCC

And in recent days, some have not appreciated the president's statements in an interview with Brut: "I do not want to say that because the 150 citizens have written something, it is the Bible or the Koran".

Emmanuel Macron, who had already cringe in September by qualifying their request for a moratorium on the deployment of 5G as "a return to the oil lamp", assured that he had "no lessons to receive" because "no one 'has done the same for ten years' on the environment.

Faced with criticism, the executive also emphasizes having been monopolized by the Covid-19 crisis, which has taken over all other issues.

And which has also led to the granting of billions of aid to highly polluting sectors, automobile and air transport in particular, and to postpone or reduce the CCC proposals concerning them.

Concerns have not been allayed by a series of meetings this week to present government guidance on the climate law, which is expected to reflect around 40% of CCC's proposals, with others finding room in the budget or the recovery plan. , or being regulatory.

A petition to "save the CCC"

“Many of our measures are present, but a little planed, it's half fig, half grape," said Grégoire Fraty, co-president of the "Les 150" association, which brings together the majority of participants.

"We have a lot of questions of him (Emmanuel Macron) to ask, we need clarification".

Cyril Dion, who has launched an online petition to "save the CCC" with more than 400,000 signatures in three weeks, hopes that the meeting can "encourage the president to review his ambitions upwards".

Especially since France is already not meeting its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even though the European Union has just adopted more stringent ones on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the agreement. from Paris.

“The climate law is a tremendous step forward.

With it, we are going to bring ecology into the daily life of the French.

But we have to go much further, ”admitted Barbara Pompili, Minister of Ecological Transition, Thursday in a collective forum on jdd.fr.

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