Paris anti-global warming plan unveiled: What changes can we expect?

The Paris Local Urban Plan, unveiled on Monday, is the fruit of three years of discussions and numerous negotiations. The text, which runs to over 3,000 pages, sets out a series of measures designed to transform the capital over the coming decade. This major change is based on a strong ambition: to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Here are the PLU's main measures:

• Limiting new construction: No new building may exceed 37 meters in height. The area around the ring road will be protected, with no construction allowed within a 25-metre zone around it, barring specific exceptions.
  
• More green space: The plan calls for the development of 300 hectares of additional green space by 2040. At the same time, the city is committed to planting 170,000 trees by 2026.
  
• Increase in social housing: The aim is to achieve 30% social housing by 2035. In certain zones, new projects over 500m2 will have to include at least 50% social housing.
  

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Despite initial tensions, the various left-wing parties reached agreement on this PLU. This text marks a historic turning point for the city of Paris, and a fine example of political unity in the face of ecological and social challenges.

The PLU will not stop with the vote of the Paris Council. It will have to go through a public inquiry to validate all the new legal provisions. Final validation is hoped for late 2024 or early 2025.

At the time of the vote on the previous PLU in 2006, the ecologists, despite months of negotiations, finally chose to abstain, deeming the plan too oriented towards traditional urban planning. At the time, Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, was skeptical about the possibility of reaching a consensus: "Without a majority agreement, there will be no PLU", she declared. She then charged her first deputy, Emmanuel Grégoire, with a reputedly insurmountable political mission: "Do your best to bring people together and find an agreement, although I doubt it very much," Le Monde tells us. We have to believe that everything can change.