Choking Paris curbs cars
Driving restrictions have been extended in Paris in an attempt to curb the French capital’s worst winter pollution in recent memory.
Amid warnings of an acute health risk from the smog affecting French conurbations, the restrictions have also been extended to Lyon, the country’s second city, for the first time.
Even the valley of Chamonix in the French Alps has been affected by pollution, prompting local protests.
The episode has put the government on the defensive, embarrassed France’s car industry and highlighted a distrust of Germany among the French.
Researchers say that one measure, the level of PM10 – a particularly dangerous particle linked to heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer – reached a record 146 micrograms per cubic metre in Paris last week and has remained above 80mcg since.
The World Health Organisation says it is unsafe to breathe air containing an annual average over 20mcg.
While PM10 levels remain significantly lower than in cities such as New Delhi – which last month recorded figures six times the Paris peak – air pollution is responsible for around 42,000 premature deaths a year in France.
Officials have introduced a registration plate scheme that should, in theory, halve traffic in Paris. Cars with plates ending in an even number can use the roads one day; those ending in an odd number the next.
Offenders face a penalty of €22, but police have been reluctant to issue fines for fear of stoking a revolt by motorists, who have largely ignored the scheme.
The pollution is the result of a windless spell and a temperature inversion, where air at ground level is colder than air higher up, trapping the smog.
However, rather than the weather, French social media users have been blaming German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s coal-fired power stations for the particulate matter. Germany should follow France’s example and rely on nuclear energy, numerous French critics claim.
Scientists say Germany is responsible for only a small percentage of the pollution in France. French officials bear far more blame, having pursued tax breaks for diesel fuel, which powers about 60 per cent of the cars in France and emits more particulates than petrol does.
Ecologists also accuse Segolene Royal, the environment minister, of contributing to the pollution with her refusal to implement a ban on wood-burning fires, which produce 23 per cent of the particulate matter in Paris.