how have the Ministers of Ecology tried to act in the face of the climate crisis?

It is a place described as “ministry of the impossible” by Robert Poujade, who first occupied the place in the 1970s. For half a century and as the climate crisis worsens, the Ministry of Ecology has often been perceived as a complex and thankless portfolio. On the occasion of COP28, which opened in Dubai on Thursday November 30, four former holders of the position described in front of the franceinfo cameras the reality of this very particular function within the government.

In the 1990s, climate issues struggled to find an echo within society, despite the first warnings from scientists and in particular the IPCC reports. “At the time, when I talked about it, people’s eyes opened wide.”remembers Corinne Lepage. “Frankly, I was a Martian. Nobody had heard of that. When you talk about our responsibility towards future generations, nobody gave a damn”traces the former minister, in office from 1995 to 1997.

“In fact, we started to be interested in climate when our generation was concerned.”

Corinne Lepage, Minister of the Environment from 1995 to 1997

at franceinfo

According to the lawyer, it was almost impossible to make one’s voice heard in the government concert. “The year 1995 was still a very difficult year, between the attacks and the strikes. It was still very hard. Go tell the Prime Minister: ‘Say, you should worry a little about the climate’ , for something that will happen in a century…” Awareness of the climate emergency is growing slowly, over the years and through disasters. This is for example the case of the heatwave of 2003, which caused the death of 15,000 people in France.

“It all goes back to Bercy”

At the same time, the various ministers come up against other obstacles. The Ministers of Ecology interviewed by franceinfo discuss the resistance from Bercy, where the Ministry of Economy and Finance is located. This is where the various financial decisions are made. Jean-Louis Borloo successively occupied the two ministries at the end of the 2000s. According to him, “it all goes back to Bercy. Due to the fact that they have the checkbook, they say what is good or not for the country’s politics, which is not their role. And if you have much less ministries powerful as they are, they are always right”, sweeps away Nicolas Sarkozy’s former minister. What Dominique Voynet confirms:

“A stupid thing uttered by an executive from the Ministry of the Economy and Finance is always better considered than something serious coming from the Ministry of the Environment, even now.”

Dominique Voynet, Minister of the Environment from 1997 to 2001

at franceinfo

If the minister has played all his cards, such as trying to rally public opinion or relying on the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, he or she has one last joker left: the threat of resignation. Between Dominique Voynet and Lionel Jospin, the red line was, for example, the nuclear issue in 1999: “I told him: ‘Look, in our agreement, there is no new nuclear power plant, (…) I lose arbitrations from time to time, that’s normal, (…) but here , I warn you without blackmail that if you had to do an EPR, I’m leaving.’ I didn’t need to blackmail, he told me: ‘I hear it, I know'”says the ecologist.

In 2018, Nicolas Hulot took the step of resignation, only fifteen months after entering government. When slamming the door, the former host denounced the inaction of the State. François de Rugy succeeded him at the Ministry of Ecology. For him, this portfolio has an intrinsic difficulty: “There is a contradiction between an aspiration to do more, faster, stronger, and a resistance to change which is undoubtedly in each of us.”

“It’s not that it’s the ministry of the impossible, but it’s the ministry of contradictions.”

François de Rugy, Minister of Ecological Transition from 2018 to 2019

at franceinfo

Government management of the climate issue and ecology in the broad sense has evolved. Today, there is on the one hand the transition, divided into two ministries: the ecological transition, embodied by Chrostophe Béchu, and the energy transition, led by Agnès Pannier-Runacher. But Emmanuel Macron introduced in 2022 a notion of ecological planning, which depends on the Prime Minister, with a general secretariat attached to Matignon.