Although more and more French people are making the environmental issue one of their main concerns, the subject remains almost invisible in the legislative election campaign. How can we explain this paradoxical situation?
“Crisis”, “emergency”, “threat”… A few days before the first round of the legislative elections, political leaders are insisting in unison on the need to act as quickly as possible. But this lightning fight between political adversaries has put on hold the imminent risk posed by a common enemy: global warming. Barely audible in the campaign for the European elections, environmental issues were still, on Wednesday, June 26, missing in the campaign for the legislative elections.
So much so that”en this burning period”the Climat Médias association, which studies the time devoted to major environmental issues in the French media, saw the share of reports on this theme in the main television news collapse “from 4.45% to almost 0” since the beginning of June, she warned on Monday.
Questioned on Saturday on France Inter about this major absence from the debates, the national secretary of Ecologists-EELV, Marine Tondelier, regretted that“We don’t talk about it much in this legislative campaign, or, moreover, we don’t have time to talk about much, given that it’s going very quickly.”
Organized in the wake of a surprise dissolution of the National Assembly, such a short campaign “tends to to focus media coverage on political issues”, agrees Anne Bringault, from the Climate Action Network. “Will there be an alliance on the left? Will the Republicans implode?” she lists, noting that “the focus is on people issues” – such as knowing who will (or will not) be Prime Minister – “rather than on the substance of the programs”.
These programs, more or less detailed depending on the parties, make mention of ecology. At the New Popular Front, where we are focusing on increased development of renewable energies, part of the financing is based on the establishment of a wealth tax (ISF) “with a climatic component”. The presidential camp is part of the continuity of its action: objective of a 20% reduction in French emissions by 2027, doubling of the number of electric vehicles under social leasing or even thermal renovation of 300,000 housing units. three years from now. Conversely, the RN promises to reduce VAT to 5.5% on energies, including fossil fuels (which is not so simple for fuels) and to “repeal all prohibitions and obligations relating to energy performance diagnostics” housing.
And this vision of Jordan Bardella’s party perhaps explains the absence of the climate crisis in the themes of this campaign. “The ecological question was already little addressed” during the regional elections, recalls the head of the list Marie Toussaint. “But when it was, it was through a speech dictated by the far right to stir up anti-elite anger,” she summarizes. “As if it were, deep down, an idea supposedly of the elites to annoy the people” with standards, taxes and other prohibitions. “A trap set by the extreme right into which the presidential majority and the government have fallen,” believes the MEP, deploring that many personalities “make ecology bear the responsibility for structurally unjust policies.”
Pointing out for his part the trivialization of expressions “punitive ecology” to designate environmental measures, or even the term“ecoterrorists” for certain activists, Anne Bringault judges that “The government has made ecology a scapegoat, particularly by exploiting farmers’ anger in recent months.”
Enough to encourage the desire to put these issues on the table. Pprofessor of political science at AgroParisTech and specialist in environmental policies, Bruno Villalba recognizes here the effectiveness of a strategy aiming to make ecology what he calls “a fictional scarecrow” : a repulsive argument, loaded with negative representations. “U“an idea that just needs to be mobilized and which will implicitly make sense, even if it does not correspond to reality”, he explains. “And it’s not new!” he notes, recalling that in 2003, the closure of the Metaleurop factory in Pas-de-Calais had already been blamed “environmentalists”.
However, the need to combat greenhouse gas emissions has never been more consensual, he assures. Therefore, aNo party would dare to deny the reality of the climate threat. Every year since 2019, the French have even placed the environment among their three main concerns, according to Ademe surveys. But the responses to the problems fuel divisions. “When it comes to moving from an emergency statement to a reorganization of political priorities, we are far from the mark,” continues Bruno Villalba.
The political scientist thus believes that the environment is not so much threatened by ignorance or denial as by “normalisation”.
“Ecology may have once been a theme that allowed people to stand out. But it is now part of an imposed figure. Since it has become commonplace, the speeches that stand out focus on something else.”
Bruno Villalba, political scientistat -
“We can clearly see that identity issues are at the heart of the debate” of these recent campaigns, notes Marie Toussaint. At the Climate Action Network, Anne Bringault agrees: “The RN has succeeded in attracting other parties, in its discourse, notably Les Républicains and the presidential majority, on its own themes of immigration and security.” Thus relegating the environment “au second plan”, as political scientist François Gemenne feared on -. If the French remain concerned about the environmental crisis, the favorite themes of the party which is leading the race in the polls “are artificially lowering the issue of ecology in the media”, underlines Anne Bringault.
For economist Christian de Perthuis, “by saying that any action which poses a constraint is a punitive action and must therefore immediately be rejected, the RN has made the denial of climate action a very effective campaign argument.” This speech, far “fundamental transformations” what is involved in creating a “just and carbon-free society”, has the merit of being “The easiest”, notes the founder of the climate economics chair at Paris-Dauphine University. On the other hand, the economist notes a “dgeneral broadcast”.
“The other two political blocs are afraid to address the issue of climate in front of the RN, partly no doubt because it has not been sufficiently worked on.”
Christian de Perthuis, economistat -
“On the one hand, there is a serious underestimation of ecological threats. And on the other hand, proposing a counter-model is extremely complicated,” adds Bruno Villalba, pointing out the “ambiguities” born from the divergences between the different forces of the New Popular Front, such as on the question of nuclear power or that of growth.
Conversely, Marie Toussaint insists on the points of convergence. “The observation of the emergency”, in particular. She assures that “It is our role, as Ecologists, to push for structural solutions” to the climate crisis within the alliance of the left. “But“It’s time for battle”, she adds. However, it is the right that has chosen the battleground.
