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Renewable fuels development is an integral part of the public policies mix adopted by policy makers to decarbonize the transportation sector. Widespread deployment of energy transition technologies will largely depend on the attitudes of consumers and citizens. This paper investigates the acceptance by the French population to pay a new tax dedicated to the development of new biofuels in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission in this sector. With a Discrete Choice Experiment conducted among about 1000 French citizens in 2018, we analyze preferences for different biofuels characteristics using both mixed logit and latent class models. According to our result, our sample can be split into two segments. The membership of one of these two classes depends on the age of the respondent and its localization (urban vs. rural). Whatever the segment of the population, respondents appear to be very sensitive to a potential increase in food prices due to biofuels production; highlighting their preference for second-generation biofuels based on non-food commodities. Respondents are willing to pay a positive mean amount for each percentage point of GHG reduction compared to the actual situation. The two classes differ in the amounts they are willing to pay and in their desire to support the agricultural sector. While the majority (65%) of respondents are willing to pay a mean amount of 2.64 Euros by percentage point of GHG reduction, a minority (35%) is rather willing to pay about 0.68 Euro. The former appears to accept the production of agricultural residuals-based biofuels, whereas the latter has a low acceptance for agricultural-based biofuels and would thus prefers wood residuals-based biofuels.
