L'observation de l'environnement. IFEN : un signal faible inquiétant

In accordance with the commitment that he made during his election campaign in 2002, the French President is proposing now to include the protection of the environment as one of the fundamental principles laid down in the preamble to the French Constitution and to add a charter for the environment as an annexe: see page 59 of this issue. At the same time, however, the French government is intending to abolish the Institut français de l’environnement (IFEN), an independent public agency providing monitoring and information about the environment, or, more exactly, to make the agency depend directly upon the ministry, thereby depriving it of its independence and of many of the desirable features that it has had until now. Jacques Varet argues that this odd and paradoxical decision is, to say the least, a worrying warning sign.