2023-10-03 15:00:06
Eric Ciotti, president of the LR party accompanies Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Auvergne Rhone Alpes region, during his arrival at the Campus des Jeunes Républicains in Valence, October 1, 2023. MICHAEL ZUMSTEIN/SEEN FOR “LE MONDE”
When the president (Les Républicains, LR) of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region was still taking a vow of silence in the spring, those close to him assured that his rare speeches would aim to open the debate. From debate to controversy, the border is porous. Since Saturday September 30, Laurent Wauquiez has used an acronym to reinforce his image as a supposed defender of rurality: “ZAN”, for “zero net artificialization”.
Created in 2021 by the Climate and Resilience law, developed in July by Parliament in order to overcome the legal and practical difficulties for the territories, the system delegates the fight against land artificialization to the regional level. A responsibility that the one who is the favorite to represent LR in the next presidential election, in 2027, does not want. “Putting building permit decisions on rural areas under cover means that we are denying ourselves any form of future”, he declared on Saturday during the congress rural mayors of France in Alpe-d’Huez (Isère), indicating that they want “withdraw from the process” – which is not an option open to you by law.
Even in its formation, some are surprised by its release and seek its political meaning. After all, the device, aimed at combating the concretization of agricultural land and the artificialization of soils, was voted by the majority of the LR group in 2021, and largely developed by the Senate, held by a right protecting rurality. His entourage rejects the idea of a media stunt. It would not be a question of circumventing the law, but of initiating discussions with the State about a system described as « ruralicide ».
Read also: Can the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region really withdraw from the “zero net artificialization” system, as Laurent Wauquiez announced?
The presidential majority, however, does not intend to negotiate a text voted almost unanimously in Parliament and repainting Mr. Wauquiez as Donald Trump of Haute-Loire. “To question the means to achieve the climate objectives set by the Paris agreements is to want to leave them and the first to have done so was Trump”, accuses Renaissance MEP Pascal Canfin.
However, some within the presidential camp have in recent days chanted rhetoric hostile to the constraints of the ecological transition, of which they emphasize the antagonism with the protection of the working classes and their purchasing power. The majority is thus divided around thermal strainers, these poorly insulated housing units whose rental the government wants to prohibit from 2025 if their energy performance is classified G.
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#Macronist #temptation #antiecological #populism