France - environment

Carbon tax ruled illegal

Article published on the 2009-12-30 Latest update 2009-12-30 10:44 TU

French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo arrives at the Elysée Palace for a meeting with non-governmental organisations earlier this month
(Photo: Reuters)

France's Greens, and other opposition parties, have welcomed a ruling by the Constitutional Court that the government's proposed carbon tax is illegal because it would have exempted too many polluters.

The court ruled that the proposal would "create a breach of the principle of equality" in taxation. It estimated that 93 per cent of industrial emissions outside fuel use would be exempt from the tax.

That would include more than 1,000 of the country's most polluting sites, it said.

For those who did have to pay, the tax would have been 17 euros per tonne of emitted carbon dioxide. It was a key part of the environmental programme of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who played a high profile role in the run-up to this month's Copenhagen Climate Conference.

A Green Party statement lambasted Sarkozy, accusing him of a "slapdash and narcissistic" attitide both when he was drawing up the tax and in Copenhagen.

The tax had nothing to do with a fair ecological tax policy, the party said.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, the leader of the Socialist parliamentary group, which took the case to the Constitutional Court, called the ruling a blow to "the Sarkozy method", dubbing the tax a PR exercise.

But government spokesperson Luc Chatel inisted that the government will persevere with its environment policy.

"It is a difficult but necessary fight," he told LCI television. 

The ruling also leaves a 4.1 billion euro shortfall in the 2010 budget.