France’s top court fines state over air pollution again

PARIS, Oct 17 (Reuters) – France’s highest administrative court on Monday ordered the state to pay two new fines of 10 million euros ($9.75 million) each for failing to improve air quality in the country’s major cities.

The sanction comes after a first 10 million euros fine back in 2021, and five years after the Conseil d’Etat, which acts as a legal adviser to the executive and as the supreme court for administrative justice, ordered the government to reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles in more than a dozen zones to comply with European standards.

“To this day, the measures undertaken by the state don’t guarantee that air quality improves enough to respect pollution thresholds as quickly as possible,” the Conseil d’Etat said in a statement. It said the money would go to environmental groups which brought the case.

It added that despite some improvement, four areas remained particularly at risk: Toulouse, Paris, Lyon and Aix-Marseille.

France is among several European Union members that the EU’s top court has found in recent years in breach of the bloc’s air quality standards. Brussels estimates that air pollution contributes to more than 400,000 premature deaths in Europe each year and has been pushing EU members for compliance and taking legal action against those flaunting the rules.

Officials at the environment ministry were not immediately available for comment.

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Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Juliette Jabkhiro and Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Dominique Vidalon and Tomasz Janowski

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