Today's Date:

Constitutional bill on the Environment Charter – Speech by Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Prime Minister, to the meeting of Parliament in Congress¹

Versailles, February 28, 2005

(...) By enshrining in our Constitution the right to a protected environment, we are making a commitment on behalf of France, for herself and for other nations.

President Chirac had strong, but accurate words to say in Johannesburg. Yes, “the house is burning down”. Yes, the planet is warming up to a dangerous extent. Yes, the erosion of biodiversity is speeding up. Sadly, there are many examples to demonstrate this and the mounting ecological threats. The French would not understand us postponing the adoption of the Environment Charter, which marks a fundamental step in our commitment to sustainable development. Preparing for the adoption of the European Constitution, as we have just done, was essential for our European commitment; approving the Environment Charter is equally essential for the pioneering role France plays in the world.

Congress is being far-sighted; today it is considering two subjects of fundamental importance for our future.

The adoption of the Charter is a crucial step in the history of rights in our country. As a result of President Chirac’s unshakeable will, the Charter raises sustainable development to the highest level in our legal structure, alongside the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the preamble to the 1946 Constitution. This founding text is absolutely non-partisan.

France will therefore be the first country to devote an entire constitutional declaration to the right to the environment. France’s role has always been to lead the way in recognizing the principles which are fundamental to human progress. Sustainable development is not motivated by fear of progress; on the contrary, it is the assurance that our societies will develop continuously, thanks to our realization that we have to reconcile economic and social development on the one hand, and environmental protection on the other.

This is not some new abstract philosophy, but a maxim for action and a desire to think ahead. By developing eco-industries, promoting growth in energy sources which do not emit greenhouse gases, concentrating our research effort on clean transport, we are shifting the focus for our economic activity onto the activities of tomorrow whilst protecting our environment.

The charter before you today is the fruit of a lengthy maturation process. Led by the great palaeontologist Yves Coppens, and immune from any partisan influence, the discussion process, coordinated with civil society, has been exemplary. The improvements made by your Assemblies [National Assembly and Senate] have enriched and clarified its content and I want here to salute the work done by your committees and their rapporteurs.

The first article of the charter is symbolic of this new conception of the environment. By recognizing the right of every person to live in a balanced environment conducive to health, we are endorsing the advent of a humanist ecology, which does not pit man against nature. Protecting the environment means protecting people and their children. This is an absolute requirement of our fellow citizens. And we had to address it. This is the goal of the National Plan on Health and the Environment, adopted in June 2004. As a result of the parliamentary debate, article 5, which concerns the precautionary principle, has been clarified. This clarification will probably lead Parliament to add to our positive [i.e. actual] law. Too many wrong things were originally said about its meaning and scope. It is now defined very clearly, which will guarantee its application and prevent any risk of misinterpretation. The precautionary principle is not a threat, it is an “exceptional principle for action, for exceptional risks”, as Hubert Reeves has written. I will take just one example, climate warming. Scientists throughout the world are telling us that the planet will warm up by between 1.5 and 6 degrees by the end of the century. Do we have to wait for them to obtain precise figures before we act? Of course not!

This is why, with the “climate plan”, we are strictly applying the Kyoto Protocol. This is why we are now committed to going further and to arguing for “Kyoto plus”. The tax credit system which will, from today, encourage energy savings and the use of renewable energy, and tomorrow the fuel cell, carbon sequestration and photovoltaic energy, achieved through an unprecedented research effort, are commitments which cannot be left until later. Even though we do not yet know the full intensity of the warming or its precise consequences, we must act without waiting for scientific certainties. Our generation already holds the harmful power to condemn the coming ones. So the charter I am asking you to adopt today signals a definitive commitment to ensure that the requirement for environmental conservation is present in all our policies. It is no longer the time to ask if our research, economic development and education policies should incorporate environmental protection. The answer is clear: yes. Sustainable development must become a powerful lever for our scientific, technical and industrial development, and therefore for employment. This is an imperative we owe the French, who no longer accept environmental protection being forgotten when we improve the transport, residential environment and economic activities of the future. When we decide to triple biofuel production, we offer agricultural producers a new outlet, but we also integrate the act of agricultural production into the strategy to combat the greenhouse effect.

Our commitment to sustainable development is fully consistent with our European and international commitments.

It is, first of all, consistent at European level, since the draft European Constitution provides, for the first time, for the integration of environmental protection and sustainable development requirements. European environmental policy will be based on the principles of precaution, prevention and correction. France is already integrating these principles into her Constitution.

But she is doing better than that. She is clarifying them, giving them concrete substance, which from now on will impact on all legislation. She is adding the repair principle and the duty to educate and inform all French citizens. Having citizens who are well informed about the issues which are fundamental for the future of the planet will guarantee a democratic, rational and responsible debate commensurate with their importance. Here we are following Edgar Morin’s advice: “if we educate for the future, we are also educating the future, we are helping the future take a path which is not catastrophic”.

The charter is also consistent with our international commitment, since we can win the battle to preserve biodiversity and prevent climate warming only by mobilizing all the developed countries and helping the less developed countries to develop with greater respect for the environment than we ourselves have shown in the course of our history. With this in mind, we will add a “carbon fund” which, alongside our development assistance, will allow us to take action on sites emitting particularly large quantities of carbon dioxide. By spearheading the international process to preserve the forests in the Congo Basin and relaunching an initiative to preserve the coral reefs, we are contributing to the protection of areas with exceptional biodiversity.

Incorporating the Environment Charter into our constitutional base is the most credible sign of France’s commitment to global governance of the environment and to a United Nations Environment Organization, whose creation we are seeking. I am pleased to say that there is already growing international support for this, with Rio and Kyoto providing tangible evidence. Article 10 of the Charter expresses France’s determination to move in this direction.

What I am proposing today, the inclusion of a reference to the Environment Charter in our Constitution, is not therefore a reaction prompted by fear of the future, it is an act of responsibility.

We will not be able to say to our children, “I didn’t know”. Two well-respected ecological experts recently wrote, “voting for the Charter will open up possibilities. Rejecting it will dramatically restrict the future”.

Let us exercise our responsibilities as a duty to the future!./.

¹ Joint meeting of the National Assembly and Senate at Versailles to reform the French Constitution.