France is doing badly. In the succession of security, social or environmental crises that accumulate, the issue of mobility comes up repeatedly. The intensity of the population’s hostile reactions is growing: red caps, yellow vests… What color tomorrow will complement the harlequin coat of a country that is struggling with its green transition?
Let’s remember, ten years ago, in 2013, the movement of Finistère red caps swept away the will of the government and the so-called “Eurovignette” Directive to regulate carbon emissions from the road transport sector. Already penalized by being isolated, Breton entrepreneurs reminded us that mobility was first and foremost a matter of geography.
Five years later, in 2018, the crisis has changed in dimension. By brutally raising the share of the carbon tax in the price of fossil fuels, the Finance Bill for 2019 filled the roundabouts and resulted in an almost insurrectionary situation for weeks, before running out of steam at the end a year and give way to the health crisis. Here again, the poor consideration of the socio-territorial realities of many French people is at the root of the problem. Apart from those who live in the heart of metropolitan areas and can access efficient public transport, many of our compatriots are condemned to take their thermal vehicles every day to go from their residence, where the cost of land is not too high, to urban centers where jobs and services are concentrated.
The misunderstanding of the carbon tax
Beyond the question of space, it is a question of the time of public action which was also at stake during the yellow vests as demonstrated by the report of the Council of compulsory levies on “Environmental taxation in the challenge of the climate emergency” (2019). France wanted to send a “price signal” to motorists following the energy transition law for green growth of 2015, more than 30 years after the Rio Earth Summit (1992) which already marked a belated international awareness of the need to combat climate change. By comparison, Sweden began taxing road carbon emissions in the early 1990s. By reacting too late and too strongly, the revival of national energy taxation plunged the country into an unprecedented crisis.
It would be good to learn the lessons of the past and to better manage the temporalities of public policies, to anticipate or at least to articulate the devices. With the low mobility emission zones (ZFE), the climate and resilience law of 2021 promises us a disillusioned tomorrow, probably in an even broader and more violent way than before. Here, it is indeed the daily mobility of practically all French people who will be affected: families to take the children to school or to go shopping, craftsmen to go to a construction site, cinemas on Friday evenings, tourists passing through . Should we do nothing? No, certainly not, but in the right time frame. Rhythm matters.
The shift in mobility transition schedules is glaring. Driven by the European Union and its 2008 Directive on the quality of ambient air, the public authorities are required to switch to the ZFE regime with the progressive abolition of carbon vehicles by 2025. We know the cost still exorbitant electric cars whose technology is not yet complete, with a more practical hydrogen engine in sight but not yet marketable and probably very expensive too. In a context of attrition of the purchasing power of our fellow citizens, the only credible alternative because it is financially accessible remains the development of public transport (TER, metropolitan RER, tram, bus on its own lane). The service of urban functional regions, of countries around large cities, is of priority importance here. The Prime Minister made no mistake when proposing in February 2023 a Plan for the future for transport maturing in 2040, not 2025! Not to mention the local political will to act, the complexity of the technical, land, legal and financial studies to be carried out to achieve ultimately to the construction of a metropolitan RER imposes a time step of at least ten years. For example, the construction site – it is true particularly complex – of the Grand Paris Express started in 2012 and should only be completed between 2025 and 2030: 13 to 18 years to complete. The time for land use planning is not that of hasty legislation. In order to make the ecological transition possible for the greatest number of our compatriots, it will take time.
The shock of temporality
Through this concrete example and this patent disjunction of the times of public action, we touch the finger on the lack of anticipation and “phasing” of the projects to be undertaken. The problem is not so much whether to initiate the transition, or how to do it: we know what we have to do and what we can do technically. Even the question of financing is secondary in the face of an issue that will only mobilize about 2% of GDP per year by 2050, half of which will be public money. THE problem is to know when to do it, which joints to implement to make the movement more fluid, to make it quite simply possible. THE problem is the rhythm of the transition, its tempo. Neither too little, nor too fast, just in time.
Science of temporalities, foresight – provided it is coupled with an operational strategic vision – is the key to a successful ecological transition. By dint of undergoing the diktat of immediacy and always favoring reactivity over proactivity, we condemn ourselves to always undergo. To govern is to foresee and to see far. Lacking this ability to articulate the times of the possible, to articulate themselves between them too, do the public authorities – UN, European Union, State, regions, departments, intermunicipalities, municipalities and their public establishments – not end up despairing? a population that no longer sees a credible horizon line for the transition? From despair to violence, there is only a spark.
* Robin Degron is a magistrate at the Court of Auditors, geographer and scientific advisor to Futuribles International