This is the kind of approach that makes public policy difficult to read. On Monday, November 4, François Durovray, Minister of Transport, presented together with Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of Ecological Transition, France’s roadmap to reduce carbon emissions from transport by 2030. This “development strategy “Clean mobility” requires unwavering determination, both to electrify the vehicle fleet and freight transport by train.
However, on the same day, Antoine Armand, Minister of Economy and Finance, was in Brussels trying to convince his European colleagues not to impose sanctions in 2025 on manufacturers who have not sold enough electric cars. Also on this day the SNCF decided to confirm the end of Fret SNCF, the historical operator of freight transport by train. The company, unable to repay the 5 billion euros of state aid requested by the European Commission, will be divided into two: Hexafret, for the transport of goods, and Technis, for the maintenance of locomotives. In the process, you will have sold 30% of your traffic and reduced your staff by 10%.
François Durovray says, despite everything, that he is determined to reduce transport emissions, which still represent 32% of the total. Since the transition policies have existed, they have not gone backwards. “Technologies allow vehicles to be more efficient, but these advances are offset by an increase in travel”points out the minister. From July 2023 to July 2024, they still fell by 3.4%, but this is much less than emissions from industry (-8.7%) or housing (-5.5%).
Three main axes
“The French travel a billion kilometers every year, 82% of which are by car or motorized two-wheeled vehicle”points out the minister, whose strategy for the development of clean mobility will be annexed to the multiannual energy program and is the subject of a citizen consultation (on the make.org website) for forty days.
This “strategy” has three main axes. First, plan cities better to make them denser and bring residential areas closer to workplaces, in order to avoid forced mobility. The second consists of “massify uses”, rejects François Durovray, “by putting more people in cars through car sharing” or developing the “express coaches”, Buses with a high level of service, with reserved lanes, easier and cheaper to implement than trams, trains or subways. It will present a national plan in this regard in early 2025. It also maintains the goal of doubling rail transport, a promise of former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, but postpones the strategy to achieve it to a later financing conference. Regarding freight transport, the Government will support the electrification of the truck fleet and wants to develop freight and river transport, which is lagging behind. Without specifying how…
You have 35.87% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
