Politics. "Simplification" Law: What the text contains, after a complicated examination in the Assembly

The text was submitted to Parliament more than a year ago, but the upheavals of the parliamentary calendar delayed its reading: the examination of the "simplification" bill was finally completed during the night from Friday to Saturday, before a vote on Tuesday.

A "catch-all" text, already adopted by the Senate, was presented above all as a "French-style" review of state agencies and advisory bodies likely to be eliminated. Without a "chainsaw" or "axe," Laurent Marcangeli, Minister of Simplification, had pledged. In the end, around twenty bodies were targeted, to the great displeasure of the left, which denounced blind cuts, but also of the right and the far right, who deplore a lack of ambition.

Will the ZFE soon be over?

Two days here, three days there... The scalded MPs will have seen the text tossed around week after week. A weariness that was sometimes illustrated by their absenteeism, and votes that swung by a few votes to one side or the other of the chamber depending on the mobilization.

Technically, the text took a much more media and political turn when the Republicans and the National Rally adopted the abolition of low emission zones (ZFE) , with votes from the central bloc and LFI, opposed to the way in which this system is applied on the territory, excluding according to them the working classes at the same time as their polluting vehicles.

"We have a responsibility as political leaders regarding air quality and respiratory illnesses; we can't ignore all of that," laments Stéphane Travert, rapporteur for the text, affiliated with the Macronist group Ensemble pour la République (EPR). Like the executive, he would have preferred the Assembly to adopt an intermediate solution, making these zones mandatory only around Paris and Lyon . A position he is expected to defend in the Joint Committee (CMP), a closed-door meeting between MPs and senators to arrive at a common version.

A clear decline in “zero net artificialization”

MPs will vote on the bill on Tuesday, in a formal vote late this afternoon. And while the RN-UDR alliance and the right are expected to vote for it in order to validate their gains, Macron's supporters are questioning it, encouraged by the President of the Republic, who has raised his voice in recent days against the blows dealt to "French ecological policy."

Because in addition to the elimination of ZFEs, the "Assembly" version of the bill also adds a clear reduction in "zero net artificialization" (ZAN), another marker of Macron's first five-year term, intended to combat the concreting of land. A marker "considerably reduced" to "allow for many more industrial projects," welcomed LR Ian Boucard , president of the special commission that studied the text. It is even "completely emptied of its substance, and I am delighted about that," welcomed Pierre Meurin (RN).

Macronists are asking questions

The EPR group will discuss its position on Sunday. The left, for its part, will largely vote against the bill. In the sights of the Insoumis and environmentalists, in particular: a battery of measures to facilitate the emergence of industrial projects or the construction of data centers, as well as an article to limit the window of litigation against projects similar to the A69 motorway.

In the final stages of the process, they were further disturbed by an article simplifying the implementation of environmental compensation in the context of development projects, by opening up the possibility of no longer compensating at the start of the work, but rather at a later date. A "peregrine falcon" whose habitat is destroyed, "do we put it in the Ministry of Ecological Transition, while waiting to find a suitable compensation site for it?" asked Manon Meunier (LFI).

Several MPs expect that the bill will see several measures rejected at the end of its term by the Constitutional Council, including perhaps the one on ZFE, if it is considered a "legislative rider" that is too far removed from the initial text.