Ecotax: Looking Back on an Environmental Fail

The French attempt to create a tax on freight road transportation didn’t last long. It was decided after the “Grenelle de l’environnement” – a vast consultation on environmental policy organized by President Sarkozy in 2007 – to fund big infrastructure projects, including railroads, and to promote sustainable ways of goods transportation. At first, this reform was embraced across the board, by politicians as well as officials in the transport field. But it faced a strong regional contestation movement in the west of France (the “red hats”), the divergent stakes of transportation professionals and their clients, and a chaotic handling of the matter by the Environment minister, while the government was advancing cautiously in the hope of cooling down the situation. However, the creation of such a tax is still brought up by right presidents of several region like Ile-de-France or Grand Est.