What if the National Rally took an ecological turn? Last Thursday, Jordan Bardella made a long plea for the environment. A well-considered strategy. Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political brief
It’s as if Jordan Bardella had started his “green moult“, Thursday evening. At a party organized by the magazine classified on the far right Current Values, he debated with the journalist Hugo Clément. And the two men, who a priori everything opposes, found themselves on the need to fight against global warming.
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The climate, a subject on which the RN is not very audible: Marine Le Pen is not comfortable with the question and has sometimes had contradictory remarks. However, some at the RN are gradually refining a new argument. A right-wing, patriotic, assumed ecology. “Do not leave ecology to the left“, insists Jordan Bardella. A vision of ecology which, according to him, would be catastrophic, punitive, too moralizing and which would lead to a loss of sovereignty.
A “patriotic” ecology, the opposite of left-wing ecology
On the contrary, ecology, according to the president of the RN, is to denounce globalization and free trade and to praise agriculture and local production. It’s respect for the land, animals, traditions, it’s also nuclear power and betting on possible technological advances. And it is above all not to impose too many ecological and financial constraints on the middle classes or motorists…”When you are a patriot, you care about your people and your environment“, he explains as well.
Localism, terroir … these are classic arguments at the RN. It is even a classic of far-right thought. From the nationalist Charles Maurras to the MEP Hervé Juvin who has been pushing the subject for years at the RN. What is new is to center the discourse around this question. For Jordan Bardella, ecology becomes a useful argument for talking about sovereignty, respect for the land and closure abroad.
You have to see how the president of the RN drank whey when Hugo Clément quoted, as consequences of global warming “the waves of massive immigration that no one can stop“. This is a speech that can reach French people who are worried about France as much as for the planet. For voters who are looking for “common peasant common sense”, without necessarily adhering to the vision of EELV on degrowth or societal issues.
Political marketing more than real environmentalist sincerity
On the side of left-wing ecologists, the subject is brushed aside. Yannick Jadot describes far-right ecology as “cartoonish“. His entourage recalls that there have always been naturalist currents on the right and that they are marginal. It’s true. But for so long ecology has been carried by the left, the subject is no longer a niche. He became the majority. The question now is who will be able to recover it and make a story out of it.
We are not talking about purity of message or sincerity, credibility, effectiveness against climate change or realistic solutions. We are talking about political marketing.
At one time, the social was a subject of the left. It is now Marine Le Pen who is perceived as leading the question. Being shrewd, who’s stopping a Jordan Bardella or any other right-wing figure from trying to salvage ecology for 2027?