Macron's ill-thought-out plan to save France's forests
The French government is preparing a vast programme aimed at renewing the country’s more than 17 million hectares of forested land to meet the new realities of climate change, and which is to be presented in draft legislation before Parliament this autumn. It stems from the announcement by President Emmanuel Macron following wildfires last year that one billion new trees are to be planted over a ten-year period. But, as Floriane Louison reports, the plan has prompted serious concerns among scientists over its potentially negative consequences for the environment and the sustainability of the very forests it is supposed to protect.
ItIt was after last year’s massive wildfires in the Landes département (county) in south-west France that Emmanuel Macron announced a project for the planting of one billion trees around the country, spread over a ten-year period. It has become the main plank of a national programme for the renewal of French forested land, which the government is preparing in the form of draft legislation to be submitted before Parliament this autumn.
