It’s not exactly the caterpillar that restarts, but a bit like it, with this umpteenth restriction on chimney fires. Thus, in Lyon and its immediate surroundings, the legal vise seems to be tightening: “The fault of fine particles” and the pollution that goes with it, says a certain Arnaud Desfontaines “territorial correspondent at Atmo”.
Atmo is not the name of a new superhero from Marvel but the Federation of Approved Air Quality Monitoring Associations. It will be noted that this controversy is not new. In fact, a prefectural decision already intended to put an end to it on 1is January 2015 with “open fireplaces” in Paris and Île-de-France. Faced with the outcry, Ségolène Royal, Minister of the Environment at the time, buried the decree by speaking of “ a somewhat ridiculous measure. » A provisional burial since the administrative court finally ruled in favor of an environmental association. But this fight against open fireplaces is not just Parisian. Thus, in the Chamonix valley, the place targeted by these new measures, “wood heating is the main culprit of pollution”already affirmed, The Worldas the Christmas holidays approach, in 2016. If it is The World who says it…
Should we also ban what remains of industry?
In January 2022, for the site News Haute-Savoiethe reality is nevertheless more nuanced, regarding pollution concerning the Arve valley, extending from Annemasse to Chamonix, at the foot of Mont Blanc. The main polluting factors, according to Muriel Auprince, founder of the Coll’Air Pur collective, “International truck traffic, with the Mont-Blanc tunnel (1,700 trucks, on average, per day) and local traffic, very dense. But also wood and oil heating. And to this must be added two ICPE factories (installation classified for environmental protection), in particular the company SGL Carbon, specialized in the manufacture of graphite products. And also an incinerator, in Passy, which never stops! All in a particular topography because, in this valley bottom, pollutants accumulate due to lack of wind…”
And our famous fireplaces, whether they are open or not? They are therefore only cited by Muriel Auprince as one factor among others. The proof is that she only requests their temporary ban in the event of “pollution peak”. Why not, after all, this lady clearly knowing what was going on and in no way blaming the fifty premature deaths a priori due to toxic emissions than to the wood fires in question.
An anti-poor measure?
But should we put an end to what remains of local factories allowing residents to avoid unemployment and also prohibit heating with a wood fire? It is difficult to see how to do this, in these times when the reindustrialization of France would be a government priority, according to the Élysée. In these villages on the outskirts of large metropolises, like that of Lyon in question today, there are many French people for whom wood heating is the most economical way to avoid being too cold in winter. However, to afford an efficient wood heating installation, “up to standard”, you have to have the means and the famous subsidies (modern and state version of the alms of the lady bosses of yesteryear) are not always enough. And then, the use of domestic fire is not trivial. It is thanks to it that our distant ancestors were able to eat cooked rather than raw. It is around the latter that transmission between generations took place. Besides, don’t we still talk about home today when it comes to family?
Considerations which seem foreign to many, visibly resistant to any idea of human warmth. So, since 1is April 2023, these same “open fireplaces are prohibited from use in the 59 municipalities of the Lyon Metropolis”. An environmentalist mayor was needed, Grégory Doucet in this case and the first of the Lyonnais, to help promote such a gas plant… and not wood.
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