8. Conclusion

Thanks to a major modernization and expansion program launched after the adoption of the French law on air and the rational use of energy on December 30, 1996, France's air quality monitoring system now boasts substantial resources (nearly 2,200 automatic devices, air quality modeling and forecasting tools, etc.).

This system, originally developed to monitor sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead, etc., has now been extended to include the measurement of new pollutants (benzene, heavy metals, fine particles such as PM ₁₀ and PM _2.5 ). Today, it enables data to be processed and results to be disseminated to the public in real time (notably via the Internet), thus ensuring nationwide air quality monitoring.

Emissions of the main pollutants have fallen...