RN voters little concerned by ecology during these 2024 legislative elections

The far-right party is opposed to any constraints on climate change. The leaders of the National Rally regularly denounce a “punitive ecology”. A speech that resonates with their voters.

The environment is one of the major absences from the campaign for the early legislative elections and even more from that of the National Rally. The party wishes to lift most of the constraints passed recently: no more law on net zero artificialization, no more rental bans for thermal sieves or even certain rules for motorists.

So many measures that the far-right party describes as “punitive ecology“. A speech which particularly appeals to the voters of the National Rally, and which has even become a driving force behind their vote.

Environment, biodiversity, climate change, “that doesn’t mean anything to me”, explains Rémi, National Rally voter. This resident of Seine-et-Marne, in the Paris region, sees ecology as “really secondary. I don’t know anything about it”.

He’s not the only one with other priorities. Françoise feels more concerned by “immigration, purchasing power, security. Ecology comes last”. This retiree supports the RN when it attacks “punitive ecology” with, for example, the end of ZFEs (low emission zones). Like that of Greater Paris, which prohibits Françoise from approaching the capital with her car “who is 22 years old. And I can’t afford another one”she laments. “They bother us with this, but what does it matter to them? Let them leave us alone with our cars,” concludes the retiree.

Between the end of the world and the end of the month, Christophe also decided, “it’s not the end of the month anymore”. This construction worker is worried about the ban in 2035 in Europe on the sale of new thermal cars. A measure that the National Rally does not want. And neither does he.

“It’s a great project, electric. But I think they shouldn’t stop thermal because if we have to throw away the battery and the car, it’s not possible… I find it ridiculous” , explains Christophe before sighing: “Political people should go out into the field to see what we are like.”

These testimonies do not surprise Simon Persico, professor at Sciences-Po Grenoble. The specialist in environmental issues attests: those responsible for the RN have made “anti-ecology” an electoral argument. “They were rather neutral and now they are taking explicitly anti-green positions on a certain number of public policies. This can mobilize a certain number of voters, such as farmers, for example“, he deciphers. Another electorate sensitive to this discourse, according to the professor: those “who doubt the human origin of global warming”.

A hostility to environmental policies that will continue to grow, predicts Simon Persico. According to him, the more the National Rally criticizes ecology, the more its voters will be convinced and will also oppose it.