“Let’s avoid fracturing. Let’s hear both those who are afraid that we are going too fast and those who are afraid that we are not doing enough. We must join forces: to go to the front together” and “to combine radicality and progress”, affirmed the Prime Minister.
Accompanied by several ministers, including Agnès Pannier-Runacher (Energy Transition) and Christophe Béchu (Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion), Ms. Borne spoke at La Recyclerie, a space dedicated to eco-responsibility in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, upstream of a National Council for Refoundation on Climate and Biodiversity.
Without presenting new actions, concrete or symbolic, the head of government, a polytechnician by training, said “to assume” an ecology “of responsibility, where we refuse simplism and we say to the French (…) that the solutions are complex”, by identifying “levers” from “series of indicators”, which “may seem complex or abstract”.
“There is unfortunately no miracle solution to the ecological transition and yet many continue to call for it and choose totems rather than structural changes. My conviction is that we must act, at the same time, and on all fronts”, she insisted, refuting the “symbol races” when some, including within her government, advocated regulating the use of private jets.
– Yellow vests –
It presented 22 projects, from the renovation of housing to the decarbonization of industries, which revolve around six themes of daily life: getting around, housing, eating, producing, consuming and preserving our ecosystems (the soils, forests, water, oceans).
They will be broken down into “action plans” under the banner “France nation verte”.
Ms. Borne defended a “greener” France which is also “more just”, “a condition for the ecological transition to be accepted, effective and unifying”.
President Emmanuel Macron had to abandon a carbon tax project after the outcry of the “yellow vests” movement in 2018.
“It is obviously not up to our compatriots in fuel poverty to make additional efforts,” she said. “Conversely, those who emit the most and who have the most resources must also be those who support our ecological transition the most”, by “showing the example” and investing “to finance innovation”.
Ms. Borne promised to support “the most modest and those who will be hit by the transitions” in their jobs, and assured that the transition “would be synonymous with better living” – even if “the challenge is immense”, since “we must do in eight years more than what we have done in 32 years” in terms of reducing emissions.
– Avoid “stigmatizing” –
She insisted on the mobilization of “all the actors”, citizens, companies, the State and above all communities, “who have in their hands most of the decisive skills for the ecological transition”.
A “first consolidated version” of this planning will be established “at the end of the year”, “incorporating new actions” and “appointment clauses”, specified Ms. Borne.
Indicators and dashboards will be put online to show “what is progressing”, but also “the difficulties encountered”, according to Matignon.
The CNR will contribute to this work with, in particular, actors from “civil society” and the economic sectors concerned.
The League for the Protection of Birds (LPO) refused to participate in this CNR, citing recent decisions by the State “against nature and biodiversity” but does not rule out returning to it. The France Nature Environnement association has promised “demanding participation”.
Questioned by Liberation on the question of whether she assumed to tell the French that they should eat less meat or fly less, Ms. Borne replied that she did not want to “stigmatize people on their way of life”, preferring ” make you want something else”.
