By Marion Douet and Laurence Frost
PARIS, June 13 (Reuters) – France should rein in tax
policies favouring diesel engines after a World Health
Organisation review found a clear link between their exhaust
emissions and cancer, the country’s environment minister said.
The French auto market, which was 72 percent diesel last
year, should reduce its dependence on the fuel, Nicole Bricq
told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Paris on
Wednesday.
“The national vehicle fleet is completely unbalanced,” said
Bricq, who took office last month following the election of
Socialist President Francois Hollande.
Tax policies had encouraged this imbalance and should now be
adjusted, Bricq said.
“I’m in favour, and the competent ministers will have to be
convinced,” she said. “This study comes at an opportune moment
for us to make changes.”
European countries have favoured diesel partly because cars
using it are more fuel-efficient than similar gasoline-powered
vehicles and emit less carbon dioxide.
Bricq was speaking a day after the WHO’s cancer research
agency said its review of all relevant published science had
removed earlier doubts about the carcinogenic effects of diesel
exhaust.
France levies a tax of 43 euro cents per litre on diesel and
61 cents on petrol, according to industry data for 2011, leading
to a similar difference in prices at the pump.
The country’s main automakers, PSA Peugeot Citroen
and Renault are among the most reliant on diesel sales
in their home market and the rest of Europe, analysts say.
Peugeot said it was still waiting for a full copy of the WHO
findings before responding. Since 2010, all its vehicles have
been equipped with filters that leave no detectable trace of
cancer-causing particles or benzopyrene molecules in their
exhaust, spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mounier said.
Renault declined to comment, but other automakers and
industry bodies have attacked the findings.
“We’re convinced that this blanket judgement is completely
unjustified for modern diesels,” said Eckehart Rotter, a
spokesman for Germany’s VDA car manufacturing association.
Volkswagen, the biggest European automaker by
deliveries, and which is currently seeking to increase its U.S.
diesel sales, said the study “does not reflect the diesel
technology that has been on the market since 2004″.
The WHO cancer agency, which had first classified diesel
exhaust as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 1988, said on
Tuesday it had removed the “probably” from that rating on the
basis of its review.
The rating on petrol exhaust was also reviewed and left
unchanged as “possibly carcinogenic”, two risk categories below
diesel.
