“A nationalist program is fundamentally incompatible with ecology”, according to François Gemenne

Every Saturday we decipher climate issues with François Gemenne, professor at HEC, president of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Nature and Man and member of the IPCC.

This week there has been a lot of talk about the economic proposals of the different parties campaigning for the legislative elections. Their programs were interviewed by Medef, and the media mobilized batteries of economists to dissect the different programs. On the other hand, we have talked very little about the ecological aspect of these programs, so this is an opportunity to catch up a little on that with François Gemenne.

franceinfo: Little has been said about the ecological programs of the different parties so far. But what about that of the National Rally?

François Gemenne : This week, many journalists asked me to comment on the RN’s proposals on climate or ecology in general. I’m quite uncomfortable because I think that the essential point isn’t there, and that it ultimately contributes to the trivialization of the far right. And the problem of the far right is not really that it is hostile to wind turbines or electric cars. On this account, many green activists and thinkers are just as hostile to the transition, and opposed to anything that might resemble a solution, that does not make them far-right activists.

If some think that this is a positive development, that all parties must take up these subjects, including the RN, II think it’s a sham. As he wrote The world this week, the rejection of ecology became a powerful driving force behind the vote for the RN, which understood this well. This is why its refusal of regulations on electric cars, on energy performance diagnostics for housing, or its hostility to fossil fuels, takes us directly back, to the age of fossils. But in fact, the real problem for ecology is the parts of the program that do not concern ecology.

“Basically, the far-right’s proposals for the climate or for biodiversity are quite secondary. Because a program that is nationalist is fundamentally incompatible with ecology.”

François Gemenne

at franceinfo

You don’t think there can be a far-right ecology?

No. A nationalist worldview, which is the fundamental characteristic of the far right, is fundamentally incompatible with the goal of keeping the Earth habitable for all, for all living things. The ecological problems that we must face today are global problems, which transcend our borders, which also exceed our life expectancy. It’s not about rescuing stray dogs. The fundamental project of the far right is to put the national interest above everything else, to only see the issues in terms of the national interest.

Defending the national interest is not the problem. It is the fact of placing this before everything else, of considering that the national interest takes precedence over the global interest. That only the national community counts, while ecology is above all a humanism, a universalist worldview which implies a responsibility towards others, and to living things in general. It implies, by nature, going beyond borders, rather than falling back on them.

But does that mean that ecology would be reserved for the Greens, for example?

There can obviously be a right-wing ecology, as well as a left-wing ecology. And the left certainly does not have a monopoly on this issue. But all democratic parties, from the NPA to the Republicans, have a certain vision of the transition. We can criticize certain renunciations, lack of ambition, poorly financed measures, etc. And that’s obviously what we do regularly in this column. But the extreme right, in its ideology, in the vision of the world it holds, is fundamentally antithetical to ecology. And that is something that has not changed, and will never change.