"We won't give up": in Douai, Macron defends his concept of "French ecology"

"We will not give up," promised the head of state, recalling that the construction of this Sino-Japanese AESC electric car battery factory had been launched only three years ago and will have recruited a total of 900 people by the end of the year.

"It's a great story (...) and it demonstrates that our country has an industrial and ecological future and that we don't have to explain to our children that we should take steps back on ecology to prioritize the economy," he declared. "That's laziness, it's not true," he chided.

Two years into his second term, the president said he was irritated by speeches calling for abandoning ecology in favor of the economy. "The rhetoric I've been hearing right now, these past few weeks, is really annoying me," he insisted.

"We can create jobs. We have created more than 2 million in recent years by quadrupling the reduction in emissions," he boasted, welcoming "a French-style ecological policy."

"We can't go back and unravel this," the president added. "We simply need consistency, determination, and commitment."

Last week was a dark one for environmentalists in France. With the resumption of construction on the A69 motorway, the end of low-emission zones (LEZs), which restrict the circulation of highly polluting vehicles, a planned return to the use of hazardous pesticides, and a significant revision of the "zero net artificialization" (ZAN) policy... Parliament either endorsed or encouraged the unraveling of a large part of the environmental record of Emmanuel Macron's first five-year term.