The Senate corrects the implementation of the "zero net artificialisation" of the Climate law

Soil artificialization consists of transforming agricultural or natural soil into an impermeable zone for building housing or an urban area.

This technical text, carried by Jean-Baptiste Blanc (LR) and Valérie Létard (centrist), the result of a cross-partisan mission from the Senate, does not intend to return to the two main objectives of ZAN, namely the reduction by half of the rhythm new land take by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

But it proposes a series of adaptations to "respond to very concrete difficulties" on the ground, indicated Ms. Létard, stressing that "there is now a consensus on the fact that the law must be amended".

The implementing decrees of the ZAN have aroused the discontent of several associations of elected officials, including that of rural mayors who have denounced "a territorial imbalance" and the risk of a "creeping supervision" on the part of the regions.

The measures proposed by the senators aim to facilitate the implementation by the local authorities of the ZAN by "strengthening the territorial governance" and by "better involving the local authorities at the regional level".

The text plans to guarantee each municipality a “minimum area for municipal development” of one hectare. This is a point of disagreement with the government, which is in favor of a minimum artificialization envelope equivalent to 1% of the urbanized surface of sparsely populated rural municipalities.

In the Hemicycle, the senators have also provided for an increase in this surface for the new municipalities.

The senators also provide for a count in a separate envelope of major national projects and taking into account the specificities of coastal municipalities and mountain and overseas territories.

During the meeting, they included, against the advice of the government, projects of interest for national or European economic sovereignty among these major projects so that their impact would not be attributed to the host community. They also excluded agricultural buildings from the accounting for land take.

The text must still be submitted to the National Assembly, where Renaissance deputies had presented their own bill in mid-February for better support for local elected officials.

The government triggered the accelerated procedure on the Senate text, but the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu was skeptical about the possibility of reaching an agreement between deputies and senators, believing that the provisions adopted by the Senate opened " too wide the door" to artificialization.