Abstract
This “Air Climat Santé Société & Art” project consisted on the development of an innovative democratic experiment in Participatory Action Research (RAP) to help and support the local authority piloting the Pays de l'Or Agglomeration in the development of its Air Climate Plan Territorial Energy (PCAET). More specifically, it aimed to focus on public policies in favor of air quality by taking on a dual problem: (1) the lack of mobilization and citizen participation in the consultation process and (2) a chronic deficit in the effectiveness of public policies in favor of air quaility. Air quality has become a major health, social and political issue. The figures come from the health alert register: 3 million annual deaths are attributed to "air pollution" worldwide, including 11,000 for France (Salomon, 2003). Air pollution is estimated to kill twice as much as tobacco (Lelieveld et al., 2019). This project is also taking place in a context in which the public authorities have adopted regulatory measures aimed to improve air quality. When the “Air” issue was integrated into the PCAETs in 2015, other measures were added such as the Crit'air sticker, the delimitation of Low Emission Zones (ZFE) or the Atmospheric Prevention Plans (PPA) drawn up by the Prefects. Despite these measures, public policies on air quality are chronically ineffective in France. At the end of 2019, France is still being sued by the European Court of Justice for exceeding the air quality limit values and failure to comply with the obligation to take appropriate measures to shorten the periods of excess as much as possible.The challenge of the “Air Climat Santé Société & Art” project was to analyze the contributions and the limits of the Artivistes device both in terms of Research, Action and Participation by bringing to light the brakes and levers inherent in the process making of public policies on Air Climate and Health issues by taking into account different levels of spatial and temporal scale.In terms of action, the Artivistes device is particularly effective at the level of the municipalities and makes possible to create bouquets of actions integrating efficiency indicators as well as the different implementation roadmaps of the local authorities. It also brings possible to translate these actions according to the levels of delegation of powers. The device proves to be particularly effective at the scale of the municipalities and provides a satisfactory first response in the concrete implementation of concerted actions. It also makes possible to translate all of the actions across the Pays de l’Or Agglomeration. If the relevant scale of co-construction of actions seems to be the city microscales, in the context of the project the upscaling at the level of the Agglomeration has proved less effective.