Paris desires to offer the Seine with a authorized persona to higher defend the river | EUROtoday

In a want adopted Wednesday, June 4, the Paris Council requested Parliament to undertake a regulation giving the Seine a authorized persona “In the form of a legal person under public law, allowing an independent guardian authority to defend its rights in court”.

“The Seine must be able to defend itself, as a subject of law and not as an object, because it will always be attacked”pleaded the socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo.

This recognition has already materialized for the Whanganui river in New Zealand, the lagoon of Mar Menor in Spain and the Los Cedros forest in Ecuador who “Showed the example”she developed.

The Paris Council relied on the conclusions of a citizen conference on the way forward for the Seine reunited between final March and May, in the identical vein because the initiatives initiated across the Loire and the Rhône.

A river “parliament”

Fifty drawn residents suggest to grant the Seine basic rights as “The right to exist, to flow, to regenerate”. A “Parliament” of the river would permit “Think of long -term decisions and contain the weight of the various lobbies”defined to the elected officers Aurélie Huguet, a citizen rapporteur.

The Seine should be thought-about an ecosystem of which “No one can claim property” the place the safeguarding of the residing should “Primer everything”in accordance with the conclusions of the Convention. She notes {that a} dynamic “Positive” Biodiversity safety has been undertaken for a number of years, with the pedestrianization of quays and the depollution of water, which at this time permit the river to host 39 species of fish, in opposition to solely 4 in 1970.

But the ecosystem stays threatened by its air pollution, the rise in water temperature, using pesticides in agriculture … The opening of swimming to the general public deliberate this summer time, with the installations it implies, may current “Additional risks”warn residents.

For the elected communist, Jean-Philippe Gillet, the Citizen Convention “Underestimates the current scope of the environment code and the possibility for associations to benefit from a right of legal action”. He additionally regretted a confined reflection in Paris “While the Seine crosses four regions”.

The rights of the Seine have been the topic of a fictitious trial performed on the Théâtre de la Concorde in Paris this winter, notably bringing collectively on stage the previous prosecutor common of the Court of Cassation, François Molins, and the lawyer Corinne Lepage, ex-minister of the atmosphere.