In the heart of the Vosges, the Les Écologists party has focused on rurality, with the 2026 municipal elections in its sights. National Secretary of Europe Ecology Les Verts, Marine Tondelier did not give up but played the proximity card.
It arrives a bit like a tornado at aperitif time on Friday evening. In a large room in the heart of a park overlooking the Moselle, in Épinal, Les Écologues organize the universities of “ecological ruralities”, the second of the name. To the sound of the fanfare, Marine Tondelier already sketches a few dance steps as she passes through the door of this meeting intended to help her party, perceived as very urban, to conquer the countryside. “We’re fed up,” said the owner, digging into a plate of organic cheeses, a sandwich in the other hand. There are more than a hundred green mayors in France! Not just in big cities, even if the press only talks about them… We have always been based in rural areas. »
We remind him of the words of Dominique Voynet in Paris Match a few weeks ago, who regretted that within the movement the city-country divide was also present, between elected officials large metropolises “more sensitive to cycling, to questions of society, gender, identity” and others, like the former minister deputy of a more composite constituency, more concerned by “the death of forests and services public ».
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Something is happening around the party and me because I embody the party
Marine Tondelier
“We are clear about our strengths and weaknesses and we are working,” replies Tondelier. We don’t have a magic wand, but we are really at work. These are seeds that we sow and the members of the movement have never been afraid of adversity. »
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The fanfare suddenly gets excited for this first evening of the “Green Summer Days, but without the Parisians”. We start with Lady Gaga then Jean-Jacques Goldman. In the middle of the track, Marine Tondelier, wearing a green jacket as a second skin, spotted women taking steps at the crossroads of country and Auvergne stuff. “La Soyotte”, a 100% Vosges dance. Tondelier tries, fails, then starts again and laughs. “I asked a lady to show me but it wasn’t the right music for it! » She will bring out the anecdote in her speech from the platform, two hours later.
It is moreover less a speech than a One woman show that she then gives. “Épinal, I see that you are as wise as a picture! I’ve been preparing my joke since the train…” she tells the audience.
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With funny anecdotes (Marine Tondelier who calls the Caf; Marine Tondelier who fills out the documents for Ma Prime’renov, for her house in Hénin-Beaumont, etc.) she makes a room won over to the cause warp, certainly, but who identifies himself. The Tondelier style, which doesn’t hesitate to press a little where it hurts.
The enemy in the countryside is the RN for ecologists
“If it’s not obvious to rural people that we represent them, we ecologists, it’s our fault, surely,” she admits. Before, when I was not national secretary, I really liked the ecologists on TV but they were only representatives of the environmentalist Golden Triangle: Bastille – République – Belleville! We need ecological incarnations. » And to quote the MP Marie Pochon, 34 years old, originally from Drôme and daughter of a winegrower. It is she who is at the origin of these ecological rural universities, the first having been organized at her home in Die last year.
In his turn at the podium, Pochon castigates the State which is disengaging from health and installing telemedicine cabins in the countryside “where the patient self-diagnoses with a doctor remotely”.
She denounces feminicides, committed “at 50% in our territories while we only represent a third of the inhabitants”, recalls that “Rural young people do not have the same opportunities as urban people (access to certain schools, etc.) , and often have a feeling of inferiority. »
She pleads in particular for the revaluation of the status of firefighter and lists examples in France where ecology is done in the countryside: a 100% organic canteen in the Alpes-Maritimes, a town in La Manche which creates greenways on a 2X2 lane, for non-residents, etc. “We have always done a lot with little in the countryside, unfortunately, and we will continue,” she says.
In the countryside, the designated enemy is called the National Rally, for the Greens, accused of fanning the embers of the feeling of decline, without resolving anything. If voters vote 60% RN in villages 30 kilometers from Epinal, “It’s not your fault” Tondelier told activists over the weekend. “These are electoral waves that are coming. If I had to be discouraged, I would have stopped a while ago! » points out the one who is elected in Marine Le Pen’s constituency. “But we must organize the ebb. I only see Asselineau or Bardella posters under the bridges, in the countryside.”
The objective of this weekend was to talk about the municipal elections. “We’re going to help you make you want to want to,” says Tondelier again. I can quote Johnny here, whereas I can’t at the Summer Schools! “.
The day and a half on site will be an opportunity for her to have multiple small meetings with putative candidates for the local elections in 2026, one in Mulhouse, the other in Haute-Savoie.
18,000 members for the party, record broken
“In the big cities, we can try to conquer Toulouse but we already have a lot and the green cities are self-managing, we are just there to support,” explains the national secretary. Elsewhere, there is a lot to do for municipal elections. Even if everything municipal is handled by local groups. »
“There are interesting things either depending on the political context or the incarnation,” says Olivier Bertrand, responsible for elections for his party. We combine electoral analysis and local feedback. We sent a questionnaire to more than 200,000 people, we already have 3,000 feedbacks. They are asked a series of questions about the municipal context, the chances of winning, the alliance strategy and training needs as well. It’s defined locally but we’re there in ‘go-between’. A political scientist was present this Friday morning to speak to them. »
Simon Audebert thus works within the Foundation of Political Ecology, an independent organization but “friend” of the party. The scientist returned to the results of the legislative elections. If they need to be qualified by recalling the particular political context, the “New Popular Front (with the Greens) was the main opponent of the RN in the rural territories, mostly winning its duels” indicates Simon Audebert. A small booklet covering the analysis of the field will be published by its foundation on “Ecology from rural areas”, next January.
The former NFP candidate for Matignon came to talk about the public services which are declining in the countryside.
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On Saturday, Marine Tondelier welcomes Lucie Castets to talk about public services which are declining in the countryside. The round tables follow one another, here on agriculture, there on the timber sector, with speakers not all committed to environmentalist theses.
A regular speaker when she is not working on her computer or on her next interviews (she was the guest of Dimanche en politique this Sunday lunchtime), the leader of the ecologists also takes care, in this type of meeting, of her renewal at the next congress greens, in spring 2025.
During the weekend, she provides after-sales service, emphasizing the (almost) 18,000 members that the movement has today (Paris Match had access to the Excel table attesting to this).
A record, linked in part to the sudden notoriety of its leader. “Something is happening around the party and me because I embody the party,” she tells our newspaper. Content and form are connected. It has never happened to an eco-friendly person to gain notoriety so quickly, without hitting another eco-friendly person. I am quite “ecumenical”. » And in the countryside, in the countryside.
