The refusal is clear and clear. “I will not change my car. If I don’t have a solution by the end of the year, I will have to resign,” sighs Franck, workshop manager of a body shop in southern Strasbourg. The forties, who lives in a village about forty kilometers away, crosses the Eurometropolis to get to work. “If I believe the law, I will soon no longer be able to do it,” he adds. Franck’s C4 Picasso is equipped with a Crit’Air 4 sticker, a burgundy-colored badge which indicates the classification of the polluting emissions of his vehicle. If we are to believe the legislation which regulates traffic in low emission zones (ZFE) such as that of Strasbourg, Franck’s car is already supposed to no longer be able to circulate.
By January 1, 2024, this prohibition may be subject to a fine. “I will have to go work elsewhere,” regrets the foreman. Understand, where his car can continue to circulate. On the other side of the desk, Olivier Kocher, her boss, nods vigorously. “In 2025, the Crit’Air 3 should be banned. In 2028, potentially the Crit’Air 2, therefore diesel vehicles, he lists. My employees are concerned and may choose, like Franck, to be hired elsewhere. The coachbuilder sinks back into his chair. “These three thumbnails represent 80% of our clientele, he gets annoyed. I’m also thinking of leaving.”
The coachbuilder is all the more bitter as the calendar followed by the Eurometropolis is described as “the most ambitious in France” by the majority in place. Because if the measure is national, the details of its application are left to the discretion of the agglomerations. Unlike the small ZFE of Nice, limited to the hypercentre, that of Strasbourg is much wider. It applies to 33 municipalities in the Eurometropolis, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Its timetable is also demanding, with a possible ban on Crit’Air 2 vehicles on January 1, 2028. Aware of the dissatisfaction, the Eurometropolis insists, through its president Pia Imbs, on its desire for “consultation” as well as on the “exemptions” and the “aid” already in place. But the concern remains strong, especially among the most remote inhabitants of the agglomeration.
Created by law in 2019, low mobility emission zones (ZFE-m) limit the circulation of the most polluting vehicles in order to improve air quality. Both cars and two-wheelers are classified from 0 to 5 according to three criteria: their type (two-wheelers, cars, utility vehicles, etc.), their engine (Diesel, gasoline or even electric) and, finally, the Euro standard. The latter sets maximum emission thresholds for atmospheric pollutants.
“I’m not going to lug my 8-year-old son everywhere on my bike”
By reducing the circulation of polluting vehicles, the State hopes to reduce the mortality caused by these fine particles which, according to Public Health France, are responsible for 40,000 annual deaths of people aged 30 and over. In Strasbourg and its conurbation, poor air quality causes on average up to 500 premature deaths each year. “We already had an air quality alert this winter,” says Moussa, a taxi driver. Since the start of the year, the 50-year-old has seen the message “ZFE – Crit’Air 5 and without sticker: traffic prohibited”, displayed on all the panels of the motorway ramps that surround the city. He shakes his head and points to the horizon with his hand. “Strasbourg is surrounded by mountains: on the right, you have the Vosges. On the left, the Black Forest. We are in a basin”, he describes. Some days, Moussa sees a gray cloud rising, not very far from the ground: pollution. The taxi driver does not take a dim view of the ZFE, he who recently renewed “his work tool” and opted for a Crit’Air 1. “I know very well that this is not the case for everyone world,” he sighs.
You just have to go to a car park to realize it: in that of the Auchan supermarket in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, a town about ten kilometers from Strasbourg, you can always see vehicles with orange badges (Crit’Air 3)… or even without sticker. “Mine is in my glove compartment, assures Séverine. It’s a Crit’Air 3.” The young woman quickly gets annoyed when it comes to talking about the ZFE. “When my car is affected by the ban, it is out of the question that I respect it,” she decrees. Declared “unfit for work”, she does not plan to buy a new car. “I’m not going to lug my 8-year-old son everywhere on my bike,” she annoys.
In the parking lot of the Super U in Eschau, south of Illkirch-Graffenstaden, two elegant retirees are also worried about what they consider to be “an anti-car measure”. “I have a Crit’Air 2, which will no longer be able to circulate in 2028, says Marie-Lise. I am a widow, I am 74 years old. I will not buy any more vehicles. So what do I do, hang myself?” At his side, his friend Gisèle approves vigorously. Public transport does however exist to reach the heart of Strasbourg… You just have to be patient. Eschau, a village of 5,000 inhabitants, is about twenty minutes by car from the city center, which can also be reached in forty-five minutes by bus and then a tram. “But you have to see the timetables!” Plague Marie-Lise.
This hostility is not ignored by the Eurometropolis. “Support tools to make the ZFE acceptable and guarantee everyone’s right to mobility are necessary”, agrees Pia Imbs. To facilitate “green mobility”, the majority in place has planned 500 million euros of investment over the current mandate. “We have recorded the creation of three additional tram lines and a new bus line, or even free transport for those under 18”, adds Alain Jund, vice-president of the Eurometropolis in charge of mobility plan and ecologist city councilor of Strasbourg. A metropolitan express network, supposed to increase the frequency of trains in the agglomeration, must also be added. Aid conditional on income – the first layer of aid corresponding to tax income of less than 6,300 euros per year – and the scrapping of a vehicle prohibited in the ZFE less than three months ago are also available .
“If the urgency is there, why make so many exemptions?”
The Eurometropolis has also extended its derogations in order to reassure the economic world: the most recent heavy goods vehicles will be able to circulate until 2031. In addition, a “ZFE 24h pass” allowing circulation in the zone 24 times a year has been announced. at the beginning of the year. About twenty exemptions have been issued for professionals and associations for a period of three years. “It has become unreadable, fulminates Michel Chalot, president of the FNTR Alsace, at the head of a road transport company. We even come to question the usefulness of the measure: if the urgency is there, why make so many exceptions?
The question is not asked only in Strasbourg. Torn between the need to apply the ZFE and their desire to avoid the wrath of their inhabitants, the metropolises contort themselves. In Toulouse, the municipality has introduced a “ZFE pass” for small riders allowing certain motorists to enter the agglomeration. A similar measure is also passed in Montpellier, for a period of three years “from the date of eviction of the vehicle”. “Can we really live in a democracy with derogations? asks Mathieu Flonneau*, lecturer at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, specialist in the history of mobility and motoring. Nothing says that they will allow the social acceptance of a measure like the ZFE.”
It is difficult to assess today, however, the consequences of the eviction of the most polluting cars from city centers. Because some scream before they hurt: if the beginning of the year should sign the arrival of the first fines for the Crit’Air 5 and the without sticker, they are for the moment rare – even non-existent. In October 2022, the executive announced the installation of a system of “automated sanction controls” in the agglomerations concerned. But this should not happen before… the second half of 2024. In the meantime, the majority of the Eurometropolis also intends to qualify its calendar: “It will be subject to intermediate evaluations in 2024 and 2026, insists Pia Imbs. We will see how the air quality will have evolved, and if we should move towards banning Crit’Air 2 vehicles”. Franck and his car still have a little respite.
* Author ofIn all directions. Circulate, share, secure (ed. Loubatières).