The Head of State sets the objective of “building a French-style ecology.” He does not want to resolve to push back environmental objectives, but fears competition from the far right at the polls.
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Emmanuel Macron presented on Monday, September 25, an ecological planning project which displays an ambitious objective: reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared to the 1990 level by 2030. An ambitious ecology, but be careful not to be painful. . The head of state wants to reassure public opinion. He claims to invent “French ecology“, a “ecology of progress”without “purge”neither “priest” ; an ecology “just” carrying a “industrial strategy” and creative “jobs”. In short, so many slogans which aim to ward off the cursed specter of the famous “punitive ecology” which so repels voters.
Do not leave the field open to populist parties
Why so many precautions? Because the political climate is changing. Almost everywhere in Europe, far-right populist parties are making progress by contesting environmental measures in the name of defending the purchasing power of the most modest. In Germany, the far-right party, the AFD, stands firm on the defense of gas or oil boilers. In the Netherlands, a very young agrarian party defends extensive agriculture and pesticides and threatens to win the legislative elections in November.
>> Ecological planning: “French ecology today is the ecology condemned by Europe”, denounces Yannick Jadot
In France, Marine Le Pen criticizes the establishment of low-emission zones in large cities and refutes the principle of “zero land artificialization”. Certainly, these extreme parties no longer deny global warming, but they reject all restrictive measures that attack it. They are no longer openly climate skeptics, they have slyly become “climate-I don’t care”. And they are making progress at the polls.
Emmanuel Macron does not want to resolve to push back environmental objectives as the British government did last week. But he advances on a crest line and seeks to reconcile responses to the anxieties of the end of the world and the end of the month. Hence the successive announcements of the granting of a fuel check of 100 euros for the most modest, of an electric car leasing system at 100 euros per month or the promise of resuming control of the price of electricity from October.
Faced with global warming, Emmanuel Macron knows that environmentalists will always accuse him of not doing enough. Electorally, he especially fears competition from the far right who accuse him of already doing too much.