A On the eve of World Oceans Day, I bring two bad news. The first is that France, the second largest maritime power in the world, has just proved by a terrible decree that it had no intention of protecting its marine territory. And this despite the urgent need to restore the health of an ocean which is no more than a shadow of itself while it is a strategic ally in the fight against global warming, absorbing more than a quarter of our CO emissions2.
The second is that no, Emmanuel Macron has not done his “green” update and he will not. While, with one hand, the president was preparing his plea from Marseille on April 16 to the address of the green electorate, borrowing from Jean-Luc Mélenchon his concept of “ecological planning”on the other, he orchestrated the signing, on April 12, of a shameful decree tearing to pieces the very concept of “marine protected area”, rendering inoperative all the promises he had made on this subject.
Let us recall that, from 2019 to 2022, Emmanuel Macron hammered home that France would protect 30% of its waters, of which 10% “in full naturalness” or in « protection forte ». Announcements celebrated for their ambition and unambiguous: the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had already clarified that a marine area could not be called “protected” if industrial activities (including fishing) were taken there. According to international definitions, the President’s commitment to protect 30% of our marine territory therefore corresponded to the categorical ban on industrial extraction and installations. This also meant that the 10% of « protection forte » promised by Emmanuel Macron automatically corresponded to the higher degree of protection: full, strict protection, what the Anglo-Saxons call the « no-take zones ».
Leveling down
These protection zones « forte » do not allow any human activity, not even small-scale fishing, and are the most effective in restoring the ocean. Scientists have quantified the spectacular recovery of the marine environment when anthropogenic pressures ceased: the fish biomass is 670% greater there than in unprotected waters! However, today, France only protects, according to a CNRS study, 0.09% of its Mediterranean coast and 0.005% of its Atlantic, English Channel and North Sea coast!
Unfortunately, protecting less than 1% of the ocean is still too high for industrialists, and Emmanuel Macron has chosen to take their side rather than that of science and citizens by reducing, through this decree of April 12, the criteria for « protection forte ».
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