At present, France's environmental tax system does not serve an ecological purpose, but rather a more traditional objective of yield taxation. Obvious signs of this inadequacy are the very large share taken by energy taxation and the low level of most tax rates, which often only implicitly target polluting products. Reforming the French tax system would mean "greening" it as a whole, by applying tax rates in line with marginal damage. The success of the reform and its acceptance by taxpayers depend on the associated redistribution mechanism, efforts to educate and inform, transparency and, paradoxically, the boldness of the measures taken.