The climate is likely to be tense. It is this Monday afternoon, at 5 p.m., that Emmanuel Macron has an appointment with the Citizen Convention, commissioned by him in the context of the fight against global warming. The president comes to report to the 150 participants drawn by lot (only 80 will be physically present), while we await the last arbitrations concerning the Climate bill, inspired by their proposals.
But on the side of the Convention, many participants expect the Head of State firmly. Its release last week during its interview with online media Brut (“I don’t mean that, because the 150 citizens wrote something, it’s the Bible or the Koran”) was taken very badly. . Just like several backslides by the government on certain measures issued by the Convention, while Macron had promised to transmit them “without filter”. “On many measures, they go in our direction, but by reducing the original ambition”, regrets Grégoire Fraty, one of the spokespersons of the climate convention.
The conventionaires wanted, for example, to ban domestic flights if there is an alternative by train in less than four hours. The government is expected to take up the proposal again, but lowering the bar to 2:30. Director Cyril Dion, one of the media “guarantors” of the Convention, accused Emmanuel Macron of “unraveling” certain measures and launched a petition to “save” the climate convention (417,000 signatures collected).
The executive objected that, due to the health crisis, it was necessary to adapt certain measures. “We drafted our proposals in the midst of Covid, we took these special conditions into account. What we have proposed aims to create jobs, that should help the country to restart ”, nevertheless defends Grégoire Fraty.
“The foot on the accelerator rather than on the brake!”
So what will Macron do? During this meeting, the president will take all his time to discuss and try to convince his interlocutors of his ecological ambitions. And his desire to continue to involve them in the discussions. It’s hard to imagine him going back down to the arena (an exercise he loves) without coming up with one or two strong announcements. “We are expecting ambitious arbitrations, we have to show that we will live up to expectations. The foot on the accelerator rather than on the brake! Hopes Jean-Charles Colas-Roy, deputy (LREM) of Isère, committed to environmental issues.
Among the strong proposals on which the Head of State is expected, there is the fight against energy sieves, with the obligation for owners to renovate their homes, the regulation of advertising on the most polluting products or even amending the Constitution to strengthen France’s responsibility in climate matters.
For convention-goers, this Monday, it is with his own commitments that the president has an appointment. “Originally, when he created the Convention, he took risks, nobody wanted them. He succeeded in imposing it on the landscape, he created an expectation, ”recalls Léo Cohen, collaborator at the Ministry of Ecology when the project was launched, and now a member of the governance committee which supports the 150 citizens in their work. . For Macron, it is a question of not disappointing the hopes he has raised himself. Especially since he knows it: the thickness of the ecological footprint of his mandate will weigh heavily during the next presidential election.
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The bill should be sent to the Council of State by the end of the month and it will be presented to the Council of Ministers at the end of January. This is when the 150 citizens will meet for the last time and will make their final judgment on the government’s translation of their climate ambition. They will then blow out hot or cold.
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr
