This great oral was organized by NGOs. Five presidential candidates presented on the Twitch platform, Sunday, March 14, their very different solutions for the climate. Of the 12 candidates in the 1st round, environmentalist Yannick Jadot, LR candidate Valérie Pécresse, communist Fabien Roussel, New Anti-Capitalist Party candidate Philippe Poutou and socialist Anne Hidalgo each had 30 minutes against political streamer Jean Massiet and to journalist Paloma Moritz of online media Blast.
Announced, the candidate of France Insoumise (LFI) Jean-Luc Mélenchon, did not show up at the last moment. He proposed by tweet to the organizing associations, Oxfam, the Foundation for nature and man, Our affair with all and Greenpeace France, to “to stand” at their disposal “in the next few days”.
As I told the organizers, unfortunately I cannot participate in the #DebatDuSiecle of this day. But I stand at the disposal of the@laffairesdusiecl for an exchange under the same conditions in the next few days.
— Jean-Luc Melenchon (@JLMelenchon) March 13, 2022
While the theme of the climate emergency is largely absent from the campaign, the programme, dubbed the “debate of the century” in reference to “deal of the century” which had condemned the State for its insufficient climate action, had above all the objective “to expose the programs”.
Agriculture, food, transport, but also democratic decision-making, and the role of communities, all these themes were addressed, in the absence of immediate topical subjects such as fuel prices or energy dependence on Russia. Candidates had to answer the question “What will French life look like in 2030?”
The most liberal of the five, LR Valérie Pécresse rolled out her program of“ecology of solutions” providing in particular for 200,000 electric charging stations, the development of a second-hand electric vehicle market and a “sustainable reindustrialization”. She insisted on holding a new “Grenelle of the environment”bringing together members of civil society, administration and businesses to achieve “consensual solutions”as during the five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy.
At the other end of the political spectrum, Philippe Poutou advocated a “radical ecology” (…) “under the control of society and the population” foreseeing “expropriation” large groups and socialized agriculture “in the hands of the small peasantry”. Between the two, the ecologist Yannick Jadot admitted that the ecological transition would not be “not painless”. But he proposed a series of measures ranging from lowering VAT on organic products to transforming housing into offices in the city center to facilitate the transition.
Yannick Jadot notably foresees a vast plan to install 100,000 young people as farmers on small pesticide-free farms, by eliminating the debt of farmers thanks to the redirection of aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (9 billion euros) and national aid (4 billion). By evoking an ecology “more social and fairer”and the restoration of a climate ISF to finance the energy transition, Anne Hidalgo also promised “a great land law” to enable young people to settle.
Communist candidate Fabien Roussel, who became known to the general public for his love of “good meat and good wine”sets the target of reaching 500,000 farmers by 2030. Asked about meat consumption, he said it needs “eat less, but better” : “It must be produced in France and respectful of health standards, in grassland areas preserving the meadows which absorb carbon” and he “We must stop importing meat” produced using methods banned in France, he said.