Overview
- The Conseil constitutionnel on 21 May 2026 censured totally or partly 25 of 84 articles in the ‘simplification’ law, rejecting key amendments that would have removed zones à faibles émissions and loosened rules limiting soil artificialisation.
- The court invoked the ‘cavalier législatif’ doctrine, meaning the ZFE and ZAN changes were added without a sufficient link to the law’s original aim of cutting administrative burdens.
- Zones à faibles émissions are local rules that restrict the most polluting vehicles using Crit’Air stickers; Santé publique France links air pollution to roughly 40,000 premature deaths a year, which was central to defenders’ arguments for keeping ZFE.
- The decision leaves other parts of the bill in place, including certain simplifications, time limits on some environmental litigation that the court found proportionate, and measures affecting datacenter planning that had been included in the text.
- Right‑wing MPs who pushed the ZFE and artificialisation amendments have signalled plans to pursue their goals through separate bills, while environmental groups and left MPs hailed the Council’s ruling as a protection of public‑health and land‑use safeguards.