“What we have done, we are aware that it is not enough but it is already a base”, admits Sacha Houlié, deputy La République en Marche de la Vienne, invited Sunday April 17 on franceinfo, after the announcements made by Emmanuel Macron during his meeting on Saturday in Marseille. Proposals essentially oriented towards ecological planning. The presidential candidate has sent signals to his left by talking about the environment as “fight of the century”.
franceinfo: Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term, if it happens, will it be more ecological?
Sacha Houlie: What we have done, we are aware that it is not enough but it is already a base. The doubling of the reduction in greenhouse gases in five years, the 93% reduction in the most dangerous pesticides, the cessation of major emblematic projects such as Notre-Dame-des-Landes or the end of coal-fired power plants . Lots of things have been done but it’s not enough, because the stakes are extremely high.
What we are transposing into ecological planning today is the renovation of housing, it is the way in which the French energy mix will make France the first zero-carbon nation with nuclear power but also renewables: wind farms offshore, solar, onshore wind power, which makes a big difference with Marine Le Pen. She has outlined, in her program, the exit from the Paris agreements, since the beginning of the campaign, for eight months, so there is every reason to believe that it is an ecological disaster which is looming, if it is elected.
What you tell voters is to trust your promises rather than your record?
What we are saying is that we have started to do it and that we are going to accelerate, since everyone owes it and because we owe it to young people. There are reasons to vote for the President of the Republic: ecological planning, but also the indexation of retirement pensions to inflation and all end-of-month issues such as the thawing of the index point for civil servants.
There are also reasons to vote against Marine Le Pen. We saw the way she treats the press this week. We also saw her pas de deux on the death penalty which she first wanted to reinstate by referendum before going back on it, but we know her intentions. She lied about crime figures even on her campaign documents. She presented herself as a defender of public freedoms while her whole program cries out that she is ready to put them under control. We have also seen his declarations on the veil and religious freedom in France, which are without ambivalence and prepare a regime in which freedoms have no place. There are therefore objective reasons to vote for the president and also to vote against Marine Le Pen.
The results of the consultation of La France Insoumise activists have come in: 33% of them announce that they will vote for Emmanuel Macron. What do you say to those who are going to vote blank or abstain?
Allow me to thank all those who will vote Emmanuel Macron without ambiguity. I know they are activists and it will not be a membership vote. I also know that among voters, there is a membership vote that can be triggered in view of the promises that can be made. And then, for the others, I say that the danger or the stakes are too serious and these are the reasons that I mentioned to you. For example, the exit from the Paris agreements: when one is a voter who has political ecology at the heart of his political commitment, one cannot not consider it for a single second or a single minute. For once, it is without ambivalence, without possible objection, the program of Marine Le Pen.