In order to limit the impact of road traffic on air quality in urban areas, Low Emission Zones (ZFE) have been established in France. Currently, eleven urban areas are affected by these restrictions on access to the most polluting vehicles: Aix-Marseille, Grenoble, Lyon, Métropole du Grand Paris, Montpellier, Nice, Reims, Rouen, Saint-Etienne, Strasbourg and Toulouse. While 43 urban areas with more than 150 inhabitants have until December 000, 31 to set up an ZFE, the government is specifying the conditions for exemption from ZFEs. Thus, two possibilities present themselves.
The generalization of these zones is provided for by law in these approximately 43 urban areas in mainland France as of December 31, 2024, but exemptions were planned and are thus formalized in a text.
For agglomerations of more than 150 inhabitants, a first way to waive the obligation to establish an ZFE is to demonstrate, “at least three years out of the last five years” by measurements or by modeling, that the average annual concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO000) “are less than or equal to 2 μg/m10”. And this, either “at all fixed air quality measurement stations in the conurbation”, or “for at least 3% of the population of each municipality in the conurbation. »
Second possibility for urban areas: demonstrate “by modeled assessment, at the latest eighteen months before the implementation obligation expires”, that the alternative measures they have adopted make it possible to achieve these same NO2 concentrations. But this “in shorter deadlines or similar to those resulting from the establishment” of an ZFE.
Please note: this threshold of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of NO2 corresponds to the air quality standards of the World Health Organization. As the State had previously observed, the WHO thresholds are “more demanding than the current European limit values”.
