Louise Douillet, edited by Gauthier Delomez 6:51 p.m., August 17, 2022

Faced with the multiple fires that broke out this summer, local elected officials are considering implementing solutions to avoid further damage as much as possible.

This is the case of the mayor of the small town of Laveline-du-Houx, in the Vosges, who wants to ban cigarettes in cars, responsible for 30% of fires.

Relieve and preserve firefighters.

This is the meaning of the initiative taken by Pascal Parmentelat, the mayor of a small town in the Vosges called Laveline-du-Houx, who wishes to ban smoking in the car during certain periods.

According to Vinci Autoroutes, a quarter of smokers throw their cigarette butts out the window, and these cigarette butts are responsible for around 30% of fires according to the National Federation of Firefighters.

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At the heart of a summer marked by multiple fires, the mayor of this village wrote to his deputy to propose a law to this effect.

"At the end of July, on my way home, I met a motorist who threw a cigarette butt through the window. I told myself that there was still too much incivility", says Pascal Parmentelat at the microphone of Europe 1 .

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The mayor recalls that the fine ranges from 135 euros if the motorist is caught in the act, up to 3,750 euros if this causes damage.

"It's not a lot all the same, when you see what it costs", reacts the local elected official, who compares with "the price of the Canadairs, the price of the Dash, it's a hundred thousand euros. The damage for insurance is in millions of euros. We are going to approach sums which will perhaps reach one billion in the territory at the end of the campaign", continues the mayor.

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For him, banning cigarettes while driving "would be a measure precisely adapted to the climatic circumstances and the dangerousness of the fires."

Pascal Parmentelat believes that we "could establish a period, as soon as we are at risk of forest fire, and civil security can determine it", he assures, "as it will end 2022 for vehicles in mountainous areas. In the Vosges, we will soon have the obligation to put on winter tires or a suitable device to be able to go on the road", he explains.

This mayor is not the only one to think about this solution: in Langlade in the Gard, a municipal decree prohibits smoking in the car during the summer.