France suffered an embarrassing defeat at the European Union’s top court over EU warnings that big cities from Paris to Nice exceeded pollution limits caused mainly by diesel-car engines, reports Bloomberg.
In the first ruling following a recent crackdown on dirty air in nations including Germany, Italy and the UK, judges at the EU Court of Justice said France “systematically and persistently exceeded the annual limit value for nitrogen dioxide since Jan. 1, 2010.”
The European Commission sued the nations last year, saying they’d failed to meet limits on nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, which are mostly caused by road traffic, industry, heating and agriculture.
“France did not implement appropriate and effective measures to ensure that the exceedance period of nitrogen dioxide limit values would be kept as short as possible within the meaning” of EU law, the Luxembourg-based court said.