Marseilles (AFP)
Total must extend to Asia the impact study of its agrofuels refinery in La Mède, near Marseille, responsible for more than half of palm oil imports from France, recommended Thursday the public rapporteur to the Administrative Court.
Six environmental associations including Greenpeace, France Nature Environnement and Friends of the Earth, lodged an appeal in July 2018 against the prefectural operating authorization granted to the oil group's "biorefinery" project, denouncing the use of oil from palm imported because its extensive cultivation fuels deforestation and damages the environment.
The associations asked the court in particular to invalidate the impact study provided by Total to obtain its authorization, accusing it of taking into account the effects on the environment only in France, around the La Mède site, in Chateauneuf. -les-Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhône).
"From its only local angle, (the project) is presented in its most favorable light," said the public rapporteur, Philippe Grimaud.
"However, palm oil-based biofuels emit more greenhouse gases than traditional fuels," he recalled, if we take into account their production as a whole.
Me Mathieu Victoria, lawyer for associations, asked for the "total cancellation" of the authorization "because from the moment we do not know the environmental impact, we cannot set a cursor on a quantitative limitation".
The representative of the prefecture, Sylvain Lavoisey, highlighted "the difficulties for the State services to carry out their control at the end of the world".
Total's imports come from Malaysia and Indonesia.
Total argued, through its counsel, Me Boivin, that the oils purchased "meet the sustainability criteria set by the European Union".
For Greenpeace however, "the + mixed + certification system chosen by Total does not guarantee sustainability (because the traced oils are mixed with oils with no traceability)".
In 2015, Total launched the conversion of its crude oil refinery at La Mède, which was in deficit, into an agrofuel refinery, preserving 450 jobs.
But since then, the group has accumulated disappointments in France.
Parliamentarians voted for the gradual abolition of the tax incentive for palm oil-based products, a decision validated by the Constitutional Council in 2019. Finally, in August 2020, the Council of State rejected an appeal by Total which attacked a decree excluding palm oil products from the definition of biofuels benefiting from a tax advantage.
© 2021 AFP