European justice has estimated that France has exceeded "systematically and persistently" threshold limit of nitrogen dioxide since 2010, polluting gas from diesel engines that stifles many cities, according to a judgment delivered Thursday.
The European Commission referred the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in May 2018 after almost a decade of warnings. France belongs to several Member States, including Germany and the United Kingdom, against which Brussels decided to act in the face of a persistent problem in the Union.
Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice and Strasbourg in the viewfinder
This judgment opens the way, in a second time, to possible sanctions, if nothing is done to remedy the situation. This pollution of the air in NO2 concerns 24 zones and agglomerations in France, including the cities of Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice or Strasbourg, but also the Arve Valley, a transit route that suffers from chronic traffic jams.
If France does not dispute the overrun, she argued that the application of European legislation on air quality "must be assessed against the structural difficulties encountered" to transpose, says the Court in a statement.
But for the judges, "exceeding the limit values for nitrogen dioxide in the ambient air is sufficient in itself to be able to observe a failure". In addition, the legislation provides that when an overshoot is found, the member country involved is required to establish an air quality plan, and to ensure that the exceedance period is "the most short possible ".
"Seven consecutive years" of exceeding the authorized threshold
However, "France has clearly not adopted, in good time, appropriate measures to ensure a period of overrun which is as short as possible", found the Court, which noted an overrun during "seven consecutive years ".
According to the latest report of the European Environment Agency on air quality published mid-October, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is responsible for 68,000 premature deaths per year in the European Union.