French government waters down unpopular new speed limits days before European elections

Henry Samuel
The French government has authorised local officials to reverse a cut in speed limits in a move seen as an attempt to placate 'yellow vests' and voters ahead of European elections - AFP
The French government has authorised local officials to reverse a cut in speed limits in a move seen as an attempt to placate 'yellow vests' and voters ahead of European elections - AFP

The French government has watered down highly unpopular new speed limits on B-roads just days before European elections.

The decision last year to cut the speed limit to 80 kilometres per hour (50 miles per hour) from 90kph on secondary roads is often cited as one of the key factors that sparked the “yellow vest” revolt, with provincial motorists complaining it was a fresh ploy to fleece them.

The cut was championed by Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, but with eight out of ten French against the reduction, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, rapidly suggested that “something better accepted and more intelligent” should be found.

This week, Mr Philippe partially backtracked by saying that while the 80kph principle remained in place nationally, local government could make the call on whether they through a speed reduction was a good idea on B-roads under their jurisdiction.

“If presidents of departmental (county) councils wish to assume their responsibilities, I see no problem,” he told France Info. They could decide to put back the speed limit to 90kph as long as the decision was “systematically accompanied by measures guaranteeing the highest road safety possible,” he said.

Demonstration in Agen, southern France shows a car with signs reading "80 no thank you" - Credit: MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP
Eight out of ten French are against the new speed limits, according to polls Credit: MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP

Hours later, MPs from Mr Macron’s LREM party rushed through an amendment rubber stamping the change overnight Thursday to Friday.

The government and road safety groups have insisted that the new speed limits helped cut road deaths in France by 189 last year. Forty Million Motorists, the car defence group and one of the staunchest opponents of the speed limits, hailed Mr Philippe’s “U-turn”, which it called “a victory for us and road safety”.

Patrick Mignola, head of the parliamentary group of the centrist Modem party, a Macron ally, said that local politicians now faced a tough moral choice. “I wager that at the very first death, they will put (the limit) back down to 80kph," he told AFP.

But Chantal Perrichon, president of the League Against Road Safety, warned that given the unpopularity of the speed cuts, “we are going to pay in blood for the pseudo-responsibility of politicians who prefer their mandate to the safety of citizens”.

France takes to the polls on May 26 to vote in European elections with Mr Macron’s pro-EU Renaissance list slightly trailing the far-Right National Rally of Marine Le Pen in polls.