between competition on the left and “bad strategy”, the list of Ecologists in great danger

One week before the European election, the head of the environmentalist list Marie Toussaint gathers her troops at the Docks of Aubervilliers on Sunday afternoon.

The list of Ecologists is in great difficulty in the polls: barely above 5%, the fateful threshold for being able to send MEPs to Strasbourg. And to make matters worse, his adversaries on the left are trying to “pick his pockets”, to seduce his voters. The deeper Marie Toussaint sinks into voting intentions, the more offensive the canvassing is.

This is evidenced by these repeated calls to “all the environmentalists in the country” of the rebellious Manon Aubry in recent days. On the sets, the head of the LFI list drives the point home: “At less than 5% you have no elected representatives in the European Parliament. If you want environmentalist MEPs, come and help us !” “We”, understand La France insoumise. The same Manon Aubry joined activists in front of the TotalÉnergies headquarters last week, arm in arm on the ground with the activists, when Marie Toussaint was largely absent from the action.

At the same time, Raphaël Glucksmann rolls out the red carpet for ecology in his program, much greener than in 2019. For example: his proposal for “ecological protectionism at the borders”. And he does not hesitate to say loudly in an interview with Reporterre: “We must take political ecology out of its ghetto.”

The executives of the environmental campaign hammer home this, like Senator Yannick Jadot: “We have the wind in our noses, it’s hitting us hard”. Nothing to do with his 2019 European campaign, when he was head of the list, and the surprise of 13.4% at the finish. The Greens are suffering this time, according to an MP, “the formatting of public opinion against ecology”. Particularly since the agricultural crisis, “there is a denigration of ecology, everywhere, all the time, we blame Europe and ecology”she laments.

But context doesn’t explain everything. “We are wrongannoys a leading figure of the Greens to franceinfo, Marie Toussaint is not coming out of the woods and must also defend a bad strategy”that of the management of“having closed the possibility of a union”. To hear her say, the MEP is not free and drags this choice like a ball and chain. And environmentalists are already writing the story of their defeat: “On the left, voters are looking for a hero… The story of the victory was Mélenchon. It’s now Glucksmann.”