Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech before the Citizens' Convention on the Climate (CCC), at the Elysee

Palace,

June 29, 2020. -

STEPHANE LEMOUTON-POOL / SIPA

  • The bill called "climate and resilience" is presented this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers before being debated in committee in the National Assembly in March.

  • This text is the result of the work of 150 citizens drawn by lot to work on measures limiting global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.

  • It is judged insufficient by associations for the defense of the environment and elected representatives of the left and environmentalists, while the right or the industrialists fear an overly restrictive text.

“This will be the largest piece of legislation of the five-year term, in terms of themes and number of articles and amendments.

"In the majority, like the deputy Jean-Charles Colas-Roy, there is no lack of emphasis on the bill" climate and resilience ", presented this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers.

This text, which the government has drawn up from the work of the Citizen's Climate Convention (CCC), will be debated in March in committee at the National Assembly.

Parliamentarians will therefore be able to amend and rework the fruit of this experience of participatory democracy.

For Emmanuel Macron and his majority, the stake is also to score points on ecology in view of the presidential election of 2022. The mission promises to be complicated as the criticisms are numerous, on the left and on the right, as well as among the associations.

Greening the five-year term

The bill contains 65 articles and takes up the six themes (consuming, producing and working, moving around, housing, eating, strengthening the legal protection of the environment) on which the 150 citizens drawn for nine months worked. .

Among the measures planned, we find the end of the rental of thermal strainers in 2028, the ban on advertising for fossil fuels and that of domestic flights if there is an alternative by train in less than 2:30.

According to the government, the text should make it possible to reduce France's greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, compared to 1990.

"On the occasion of this law, we will recall that we have a good record and that we are far from the caricature according to which we have done nothing on the environment", advance Jean-Charles Colas-Roy, deputy La République en Marche for Isère.

Because the attacks were not long in coming.

Many and varied attacks

"The account is not there", tackle this Tuesday a hundred associations for the defense of the environment or the fight against poverty, including Greenpeace, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation, the Abbé Pierre Foundation or the CFDT.

For the ex-walker Matthieu Orphelin, deputy for Maine-et-Loire, the text is "very insufficient".

"It is an ambitious law for which the government has nothing to be ashamed of," replied Matignon, who promised the forthcoming publication of an impact study assessing precisely the consequences of government action in favor of the environment.

The pressure was also accentuated by the decision rendered on February 3 by the administrative tribunal of Paris.

The latter recognized the State "responsible [...] for part of the ecological damage observed", for not having respected its own path of reduction of greenhouse gases.

"This judgment concerns the past," we sweep away with annoyance at Matignon.

“In 2019, we achieved our objectives and, in 2020 and 2021, emissions will drastically decrease.

"

The environmental "at the same time"

The debates promise to be heated in the Assembly, where the majority will be caught in the crossfire.

"The left will say that we have done nothing or not enough, and the right will accuse us of putting obstacles in the wheels of certain sectors, or of ignoring the economic crisis", anticipates Jean-Charles Colas- Roy.

"We must find a way of balancing."

The exercise could turn out to be complicated, including within the majority, where "there are still divisions", according to political scientist Daniel Boy, co-author of a survey on the environmental issue among parliamentarians.

This "balance" is the "macronist vision of ecology", however pleads a framework of the presidential party, where the theme is identified as "a crucial issue for 2022".

“We want to put the preservation of the planet and the freedom of enterprise on the same level.

We do things "at the same time": we have ambitious objectives, but to achieve them we rely on incentives rather than constraints, "continues this LREM manager.

The perilous bet of participatory democracy

Another risk for the president, seeing his experience of participatory democracy turn sour.

Some members of the Convention deplore that their work is watered down in the text of the government, while Emmanuel Macron had promised to resume them "without filter".

"We are disappointed to see so many of our proposals diminished," regrets to

20 Minutes

 Mélanie Cosnier, who participated in the CCC.

The latter will issue an opinion at the end of February.

The parliamentarians, for their part, are eager to be able to rework the text, anxious not to be bypassed by civil society.

"Either the grumpy are right and it fails, or it works and we will have shown that participatory and representative democracy complement each other well", summarizes a parliamentarian LREM, who hopes to be able to reuse this method for future reforms, "for example on the end of life ".

If it manages to avoid these pitfalls, the majority can hope to enact the “climate and resilience” bill before the end of the five-year term.

For what benefits?

"This text can allow Emmanuel Macron to consolidate his electorate, seduced by this so-called reasoned or pragmatic ecology", observes Daniel Boy, research director at the political research center of Sciences Po (Cevipof).

"But I doubt that this will allow him to extend it, because I do not believe that left-wing or EELV voters can be seduced by this law."

This would nevertheless allow him to add a text to his credit, while the project to include environmental protection in the Constitution, examined from March 9 in the National Assembly, risks encountering more pitfalls. 

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“Climate and Resilience” bill: “We are disappointed to see so many of our proposals reduced”, regrets Mélanie Cosnier, citizen of the Climate Convention

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