• The state was ordered Wednesday to pay 10 million euros in fine for non-compliance with its European commitments on air pollution.

    If he does not act effectively within six months, a further fine of 10 million euros will follow.

  • Will this financial and political pressure encourage the state to act?

  • However, it would not be impossible for the State to continue playing time.

The fine is enough to make you cough.

The Council of State on Wednesday condemned the State to pay 10 million euros in fine for non-compliance with its commitments in terms of air pollution.

This is the last episode in a now long series of lawsuits by environmental defense associations against the state.

In this particular case of air pollution, the fine of the Council of State even arrives four years after the first conviction.

20 Minutes

explains to you the stakes of this legal war.

What has the Council of State decided?

The State is condemned for non-compliance with its European commitments in terms of air pollution but also for non-compliance with a decision of the Council of State ordering it to respect these commitments. The case is already old: in 2017, the highest French court had, under the injunction of various environmental NGOs including Les Amis de la Terre, called for plans to reduce emissions of particles and nitrogen dioxide in thirteen zones. . In 2019, the associations judged that the plans launched were not up to the task "and in 2020, the Council of State again proved us right", reminds

20 Minutes

Louis Cofflard, lawyer specializing in law. environment and town planning at the Paris Bar, lawyer of Friends of the Earth and other NGOs involved in this case.

The state had six months to toughen measures in eight cities where the drop in pollution was not considered sufficient. At the start of 2021, analyzes were carried out and in five agglomerations (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse and Grenoble), the results were not deemed satisfactory, which brings us to Wednesday's decision. It may not be over because the decision only concerns the first six months of the year: if in six months the situation remains unchanged, a new fine will fall, and so on.

Lawyer Louis Cofflard nonetheless notes an innovation: “These 10 million euros will be paid to public bodies which take care of the protection of the environment.

This allows the fine to remain in the public domain.

There is no deadweight loss, it does not happen at the expense of the taxpayer.

Friends of the Earth and other NGOs only recover 1% of the fine.

What does this decision change?

As usual in this type of case where environmental associations attack the State, it is a question of putting pressure on political actors. Financial pressure first, because if for the moment the fine does not represent a dead loss for the state coffers, it may not always be the same. Louis Cofflard even judges that the decision of the Council of State aims to "protect the taxpayer": to protect him from a fine of European justice for non-compliance with EU directives on air pollution. Which will potentially be heavier, and which, this time, will not go to public bodies.

It is also political pressure.

Louis Cofflard believes that the State, "which has not ceased to postpone the deadline" is taken at its own game: "The European directive that France is violating came out in 2008 and the thresholds were updated in 2010 , we've known what to do for eleven years.

But can what has not changed in four years be changed in six months, before a further 10 million euros fine?

“There are plenty of ways to act on public or private transport, for example.

And there is no need for big laws: each mayor has authority over traffic in his city for example.

The state must put all the players around the table, ”said the lawyer.

Are we coming to the end of the legal tactics?

Louis Cofflard recognizes that in order to act, it will take, at the end of the day, a political will: “We cannot make the police against the police. And this is a bit what the opponents of this legal strategy on environmental issues have long criticized: decisions, even condemnations, cannot replace government political will. In the case at hand, we can for example fear that the State will reduce the operating budgets of public bodies by the same amount, which will benefit from the fine of 10 million euros. The effect of the sentence would then be wiped out.

An impossible hypothesis to exclude, but Louis Cofflard warns: “A government which considers itself not bound by a court decision, in a democratic state, is still a not very honorable task.

It would be very serious in fact!

The Council of State could get annoyed.

In addition, for him, the credibility of France on these international commitments is at stake, but also a potential political cost on the domestic scene for the government, a few months before the presidential campaign.

It remains to be seen whether the government, which still seems to be the master of the game, will make the same calculation.

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  • Planet

  • Environment

  • Board of state

  • Fine

  • Air pollution