The French prime minister has announced that the government is dedicating an extra €1.5 billion to the state’s green agenda despite the country’s ongoing cost of living crisis.
An extra €1.5 billion (~$1.5 billion) is being earmarked by the French government for the purpose of implementing its green agenda, the country’s Prime Minister announced on Saturday.
The extra funding is being allocated despite the country’s general public facing a crippling cost of living crisis, with President Emmanuel Macron even hinting at possible public unrest as his nation enters the “end of abundance“.
According to a report by radio network France Info, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that her government were starting this new “green fund” with the aim of getting local authorities to implement even more climate change measures.
To this end, the €1.5 billion will reportedly help such authorities achieve national green ambitions by enabling them to spend money on renovating buildings, bringing “nature back to cities”, and limiting “urban sprawl”.
Overall, the huge fund, Borne appears to hope, will “make it possible to put in place solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, with the politician also promising to announce more green agenda policies over the autumn period.
Borne was also forced to defend her desired furthering of the French government’s climate agenda in the context of the ongoing cost of living crisis, one so bad that the French president even hinted that the country now runs the risk of seeing public unrest only days before her announcement.
“I believe that what we are experiencing is of the order of a great shift or a great upheaval,” he said, warning that his nation was now entering the “end of abundance” and “costless liquidity”.
“Faced with this great shift, our fellow citizens may react with great anxiety,” Macron warned, before begging the public to “agree to pay the price” of what he described as “our freedom and our values”.
Despite announcing that the government is going to allocate another huge sum of money to fighting climate change rather than alleviating the stresses felt by the general public, the French prime minister actually backed Macron’s comments.
“It is not a question of promising blood and tears, but it is important that everyone is aware of the gravity of the moment,” she said.
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