Paris (AFP)

The state is "responsible" for failures in the fight against global warming, said administrative justice on Wednesday, a decision hailed as "historic" by the NGOs which attacked France for its inaction, supported by a petition of more than 2 , 3 million citizens.

"In line with the commitments it had made and which it did not respect in the context of the first carbon budget, the State must be held responsible (...) for part of the ecological damage observed," write the judges of the administrative tribunal of Paris at the end of two years of proceedings.

But they have given themselves an additional two months to study the request of NGOs to urge the State to take measures to meet its own commitments in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions.

This "additional instruction" should in particular allow the Council of State to rule on a similar request, filed by the municipality of Grande-Synthe (North), a decision expected in the coming weeks.

In a first resounding decision for environmental defenders, who rely more and more on legal actions, the highest administrative court of the country had thus given in November three months to the State to justify its actions in matters of reduction of CO2 emissions.

The Council of State had already underlined that France, which committed to reducing its emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 - had exceeded the carbon budgets determined by the State itself.

- "proof that we must be ambitious" -

“BACKGROUND: the state's climate inaction is deemed ILLEGAL!”, The requesting NGOs quickly tweeted in reaction, grouped under the banner “The Affair of the Century” (Notre Affaire à tous, Greenpeace France, Nicolas Hulot Foundation and Oxfam France).

However, the Tribunal rejected the NGOs' request for compensation of one symbolic euro for this ecological damage, for legal reasons on the nature of the reparations payable.

On the other hand, he granted them a symbolic euro for moral damage.

The judges therefore generally followed the recommendations of the public rapporteur who had asked during the hearing in mid-January to recognize the "faulty failure" of the State, for "not having respected the trajectory" of reduction of emissions of greenhouse gas that he himself has fixed.

On the other hand, she considered that the faulty deficiency could not apply to the level of the objectives themselves and had therefore suggested postponing the request to urge the State to take additional measures against global warming.

For its part, the government did not immediately react to this judgment, but had during the proceedings rejected the accusations of inaction.

In particular, it highlights the energy-climate law of 2019, which "strengthens climate objectives", aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 and a 40% reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels by 2030. Without forgetting the part of the recovery plan devoted to ecological transition.

The NGOs hope that a victory in justice could modify the balance of political forces, at a time when the bill resulting from the proposals of the Citizen's Convention for the climate, which they consider largely below the stake, must be presented next week in the Council of Ministers.

"It is a good echo of the Convention, which proposed solutions, a flagrant proof that we must be ambitious. It makes the law go faster, further, stronger," said Grégoire Fraty. , co-founder of the association "Les 150" of participants in the CCC.

"The judges are now clearly saying that the promises do not engage those who listen to them, but first those who formulate them," for her part esteemed MEP Marie Toussaint, one of the initiators of the procedure.

© 2021 AFP