Paris (AFP)
The elected environmentalists of Paris again demanded Tuesday from Anne Hidalgo a moratorium on the deployment of 5G in the capital time to "quantify its carbon impact" and to "assess the needs".
This request, formulated for several months by the environmental group which is part of the majority in the Council of Paris, but rejected by the socialist mayor, is reiterated the day after statements by the founder of the telecom operator Free Xavier Niel, evoking an available 5G in Paris before "the end of February".
"It is up to the cities, first and foremost the capital, to take all the necessary measures to respect the trajectory of reducing our carbon footprint", we can read in a letter from the elected Greens addressed to Anne Hidalgo and sent to the AFP.
"It is therefore up to you to suspend the deployment of 5G while it is time to quantify its carbon impact for Paris (...) and to establish a precise assessment of the possible needs experienced on the Parisian territory to which 5G could truly meet", they add.
According to data published by the Telecoms Regulatory Authority (Arcep), more than 7,500 5G sites have been commercially opened by Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom since the end of November in France, outside of Paris and major cities.
On Monday, the founder of Free, Xavier Niel, was relatively optimistic about the deployment of 5G in the capital.
"I was a little critical a month ago but I feel like things are moving in the right direction," he said.
Ruling out any moratorium, the Paris city hall set up a citizens' conference in 2020 to debate and make recommendations on 5G, but without questioning them on their willingness to deploy it or not.
When presenting these conclusions in December, Anne Hidalgo pledged to provide "clear and transparent information".
The 5G promises to offer, in the long term, a flow up to 10 times faster but this new technology faces the hostility of a part of the population, for reasons in particular health or environmental.
© 2021 AFP