The traffic ban for 380,000 most polluting vehicles in the Greater Paris metropolis, the next stage of its low emission zone (ZFE), must be postponed again, from July 2023 to “end of 2024, beginning of 2025”, indicated one of its vice-presidents at AFP.
After a “discussion between all the groups” in progress, the Métropole du Grand Paris (MGP) “will act on the postponement in June during a metropolitan council”, said Tuesday Geoffroy Boulard, also mayor (LR) of the 17th arrondissement. from Paris. The MGP “believes that the calendar is not tenable,” said Boulard.
Already postponed once
“The ban on Crit’air 3, according to all assumptions, will take place after the Games”, specified this vice-president of the MGP, on the same political side as President Patrick Ollier, referring to the deadline of “end of 2024, beginning 2025”.
The traffic ban, from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., of cars displaying a Crit’air 3 sticker in Paris and its inner suburbs has already been postponed for the first time from July 2022 to July 2023.
This new phase of prohibition, the third after those of unclassified vehicles and Crit’air 5 (July 2019), then Crit’air 4 (June 2021), concerns 380,000 cars, “including almost one in two in certain municipalities located in Seine-Saint-Denis,” emphasizes Mr. Boulard.
hot topic
This is a politically hot topic, especially in this time of inflation, due to vehicle replacement costs. “The zero-rate loan is still not guaranteed by the State”, which has also not provided an answer to the metropolis on the “implementation of automatic control”, adds Mr. Boulard, aware that the MGP finds itself on a “crest line between a virtuous policy” from an environmental point of view and its “social acceptability”.
The LR president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse has positioned herself in favor of a new postponement of 18 months, for individuals only, while the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, who has promised the end of diesel in 2024 in the capital, wants the calendar to be maintained and asks Emmanuel Macron to “take responsibility”.
To date, 11 metropolises have their ZFE, with different schedules. But in February, the Metropolis of Lyon announced the “easing” of its schedule and “the overhaul” of its extension project.