Overview
- The Senate, which voted late Tuesday, expanded emergency-law amendments to ease rules for building and authorizing water-storage reservoirs for agriculture across France.
- Senators removed the obligation to hold public meetings for environmental approval of storage projects and applied the simpler consultation process to all projects instead of only those with prior PTGE territory consultation.
- An adopted article lets a prefect keep water withdrawals running for up to five years even after a judge annuls an extraction permit, lengthening the executive override from the two years in the government text.
- The chamber inserted a ‘non-régression agricole’ principle and set an objective to double agricultural storage capacity by 2035, a target the Environment Minister called “pharaonic” and critics say risks over-extraction.
- The government and left-ecologist MPs sharply criticized the moves and further water provisions are due for votes, leaving the bill contested and likely to face negotiation in a mixed parliamentary commission.