ZFE: Crit'Air 4 vehicles banned in Lyon, Grenoble and Strasbourg on 1 January

Europe 1 with AFP 11:33 a.m., December 29, 2023

The metropolises of Lyon, Grenoble and Strasbourg are continuing to set up their Low Emission Zones (LEZs) to improve air quality by excluding more old diesel vehicles from Monday. From 1 January, vehicles with the Crit'Air 4 sticker, diesels registered "between 2001 and 2005 for cars, between mid-2000 and 2004 for motorcycles and mopeds, will be banned from Greater Lyon", says the ecologist metropolis on its website.

Energized set-up

Even more polluting, Crit'Air 5 vehicles (diesel registered before 2001) have already been banned since the beginning of 2023. The implementation, since 2020, of the Lyon LEZ has not been without tension, with the debate crystallizing here as elsewhere on its effects for the most modest motorists, in the midst of a purchasing power crisis, due to the cost of less polluting, hybrid and electric vehicles.

In June, the Lyon metropolitan area had to scale back its perimeter extension project and postpone the ban on Crit'Air 2 vehicles, initially scheduled for January 1, 2026 and which will finally be able to drive until January 1, 2028. Grenoble and twelve municipalities in its metropolis will also ban Crit'Air 4 from January 1, a measure that will be effective from Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 19 p.m. The Crit'Air 5 had already been banned there since July.

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Widespread EPZs by 2025

Exemptions will nevertheless be possible, says the Métropole de Grenoble, in particular for people who work staggered hours, shopkeepers or vintage vehicles. A six-month "pedagogical" period, without fines, is also planned. In the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg (33 municipalities), Crit'Air 4 vehicles have also been under a so-called "educational" regime for a year, but will in turn be banned from the sector on 1 January, like Crit'Air 5 vehicles banned since the beginning of 2023.

To date, eleven metropolises have started rolling out EPZs, each with its own schedule. Their creations are the result of the 2019 Mobility Orientation Law (LOM). A generalization in France of these zones is provided for by law by 2025 in the 43 agglomerations of more than 150,000 inhabitants. "Each year, air pollution generates about 40,000 premature deaths, according to Public Health France (2021)" and "also causes a number of conditions and chronic diseases (cardiovascular diseases, asthma ...)", recalls the website of the metropolis of Lyon.