On 27 September, Ségolène Royal, the French Minister for the Environment, confirmed in a radio interview that a kilometric reimbursement scheme for employees cycling to work will be introduced in France. 

Read the context article from September

After the encouraging decision earlier this year to introduce a tax-free reimbursement scheme for employees that use their bike to go to work, the French government has made a last-minute change to the mechanism that limits the yearly tax-free amount of the reimbursement to 200 EUR. We find that this is highly problematic, since this limitation, combined with the earlier decision to make the scheme voluntary for companies and not obligatory, will render the scheme much less attractive both for companies and for employees. It will compromise the scheme’s general uptake as well as its potential to increase cycling to work in France.

ECF is very happy with the success of the COP21 conference that was held under French presidency, and we are confident that for next year’s budget law, the French government will show the same level of ambition in the national tax regulations for the promotion of cycling.

ECF has joined #InterKoalitionVélo a wide coalition of many actors in France, led by FUB, one of our member organisations, on the new French fiscal incentive scheme for commuting by bicycle, calling for a mechanism that is obligatory and does not set a limitation to the yearly tax-free amount of the reimbursement. The introduction of an effective mileage reimbursement scheme, in the framework of an ambitious national cycling plan with appropriate financing, would allow France to reap the benefits of more cycling both for individual employees, companies, and public budgets: increased physical and mental health, less costs related to sickness absence, less air pollution and less congested roads, to name just a few. It would also set an example for other countries.

ECF therefore calls on the French government to reconsider its decision to make the cycling reimbursement scheme voluntary and limited and to work together with the French cycling associations to put together a strategy for cycling in line with the successful work France has done as the host country of this year’s COP21 conference on climate change.