Elimination of ZFE: Let’s bring calm back to the debate

The association points out that the system already allows for exceptions and is subject to accompanying measures such as those mentioned by Christophe Béchu during the ministerial committee for monitoring air quality in cities on March 19, 2024. It leaves considerable room for maneuver for the presidents of the inter-municipal authorities concerned.

Thus, the metropolitan areas of Paris and Lyon are now the only ones required to restrict the circulation of Crit'Air 3 vehicles since January 1, 2025, because other urban areas and metropolitan areas with more than 150.000 inhabitants, which must establish a ZFE, have fallen below the air pollution thresholds stipulated by the Climate and Resilience Act. For the latter, the only obligation provided for by the law is the implementation of restrictions for unclassified cars.

Inter-municipal presidents thus have the ability to precisely determine the routes, days, and times affected by traffic restrictions, as well as the type of vehicles. The flexibility of implementing ZFEs is thus far removed from the way in which the current heated debates portray them.

For example, the Clermont Auvergne Métropole metropolitan area has only implemented its ZFE on certain roads and only for unclassified utility vehicles and heavy goods vehicles, while Greater Reims only applies it on a section of motorway and in the city centre of Reims for Crit'air 5 and Crit'air 4 vehicles, with the exception of two-wheelers.

While adapting to local realities is a shared objective, elected officials from inter-municipal authorities oppose the outright elimination of the measure. The association is available to parliamentarians and the government to discuss ways in which the system could be improved and to share concrete feedback from the field.

More generally, Intercommunalités de France calls on the legislature and the Government to stop the constant, ad hoc challenges to the legislative framework of our intercommunalities, which they themselves have decided upon, leading to a waste of public money and uncertainty in the regions.

Whether it is water and sanitation, zero net artificialization (ZAN), low emission zones (ZFE), inter-municipal authorities need visibility, stability and funding to carry out their ecological transition policies and cannot be satisfied with these continual changes to the law.