Get out of diesel completely by 2024, for an exemplary Olympic Games from an environmental point of view. This was one of the ambitions of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, with the closing of the lanes on the banks to car traffic, to improve the quality of life of Parisians. If, after multiple legal adventures, it is now certain that the quays of the Seine will remain reserved for walkers, diesel vehicles will be able to continue to drive in the streets of the capital in 2024.
According to information from Mondethe Low Emission Zone (LEZ) deployment schedule aiming to achieve “zero diesel” by 1is January 2024 cannot be held. “The City of Paris does not want a postponement but the ZFE now falls under the jurisdiction of the metropolis”, says David Belliard, deputy in charge of transport. In the metropolis of Greater Paris (MGP), there is no great mystery. “Unfortunately, the diesel exit target in 2024 cannot be met,” confirms its vice-president (Socialist Party) Daniel Guiraud, delegate for ecological transition and air quality.
Paris was the first city in France to have a ZFE, in 2015. It prohibits the circulation of the oldest vehicles on weekdays, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The last stage of restriction dates back to June 2021: it concerns vehicles classified Crit’Air 4, i.e. diesels put into circulation before 2006. Since then, nothing.
The climate and resilience law of August 2021 transferred the prerogatives linked to the ZFEs to the metropolises. Initially limited to inner Paris, the ZFE was extended to the perimeter delimited by the A86 motorway. Twice, the MGP has postponed the next step, namely the exclusion of Crit’Air 3 (diesels over eleven years old and also gasolines from before 2006). An important step, since it concerns 1.4 million vehicles registered in Ile-de-France, i.e. double the number of vehicles currently prohibited. Scheduled for July 2022, it has been postponed to July 2023.
“By dint of delaying, we will fail”
To achieve the exclusion of all diesel vehicles, a final step had to be taken on 1is January 2024, with the ban on Crit’Air 2, which includes diesels registered after 2011 and petrol registered between 2006 and 2011. “Just for the intra-A86 zone, this represents 1.3 million vehicles, it is an impossible quantitative leap”, explains Daniel Guiraud. For the vice-president of the MGP, it is not only the end goal of diesel that is in danger, but the exit from thermal power by 2030: “By dint of delaying, we will fail. »
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