Nicole Belloubet announced Wednesday that the Citizens' Climate Convention proposal to create an "ecocide crime" could not be submitted to the referendum. Because these proposals relate to criminal legislation, according to the Minister of Justice. 

Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet said Wednesday that it was not possible to submit "to the referendum" the proposal of the Citizen's Climate Convention to create an "ecocide crime", during questions to the government in the Senate . The Citizen Climate Convention had asked Sunday, among more than a hundred proposals from nine months of work, to submit to a referendum the idea of ​​creating a crime of "ecocide".

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The Keeper of the Seals has set out two obstacles to the creation of such a crime: "On the one hand, we cannot submit these proposals to the referendum since they relate to criminal law" and on the other hand, a "requirement of precision of the criminal law" that this crime would not fulfill.

The citizens' convention, she explained, "speaks of the definition of the crime of ecocide within limits which are planetary limits. And it evokes the exceeding of planetary limits". The "planetary limits" to which it refers are those not to be exceeded to preserve the planet, in terms of global warming or preservation of biodiversity for example.

Law proposals for the introduction of ecocide into French criminal law already rejected

According to the definition of the Citizens' Convention, "constitutes a crime of ecocide, any action having caused serious ecological damage by participating in the manifest and not insignificant overshoot of planetary limits, committed with knowledge of the consequences which were to result therefrom and which could not be ignored ". Bills for the introduction of ecocide into French criminal law were rejected this year in the Senate and the National Assembly.

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Nicole Belloubet ready to think about "a more general crime on water and air pollution"

Nicole Belloubet recalled the recent creation of new environmental jurisdictions and a new procedure, "the judicial convention for the environment", a form of pleading guilty for polluting companies. She assured that she was ready, with the Minister of the Ecological Transition Elisabeth Borne, "to reflect on a more general crime of pollution of water, soil, air, which could find place in our criminal law of l 'environment".

Last Friday, Elisabeth Borne declared herself in favor of a referendum concerning the proposals of the Citizen's Climate Convention, taking up a promise from Emmanuel Macron, but without specifying on which themes in particular.