L’Express: Ecologists have won the cultural battle, global warming is a global issue that mobilizes young people, the Green parties are government parties in several European countries, they are in power in Germany in many Länder and govern for the second time in coalition at the federal level… But in France, they make less than 5%. Why ?
Daniel Cohn-Bendit: The problem of environmentalists in France is that of the left in general. In France, we have shameful reformism. Socialists feel compelled to integrate the necessary reforms into an ideology of radical economic-political change. This was already the case with Mitterrand before 1983, who decreed a program of rupture with capitalism. The Greens came out of the same mold and they belong to the same anti-reformist wave. This is what makes environmental policy more difficult in France. Because in the face of global warming, if we declare that we can only succeed in the energy transition by going beyond capitalism, rather than through structural reforms that allow society to gradually accept this transition, such as the development of renewables and energy sobriety, we’re screwed.
We see it with the Green mayors in Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, Grenoble, who want to ban Christmas trees, the passage of the Tour de France or 5G, on the pretext that it would only be used to watch porn movies in trains. It’s completely stupid. They feel compelled to display a facade of revolutionaryism, to coat their reformist practice in radical chocolate. But it goes beyond environmentalists. How can a society that is dealing with really serious problems get upset about whether or not a few women are swimming in a burkini in a swimming pool? How can a mayor take the time to make a subject of it? We walk on the head. There is a hysteria in France that I don’t understand.
However, one of Yannick Jadot’s former collaborators, Denis Pingaud, on the contrary criticizes the candidate for having missed his campaign by “lack of radicalism in the approach, simplicity in the subject and audacity in the posture”. Was the environmentalist candidate too radical or not radical enough?
Jadot was unable to choose between the reformist option, which is his natural line, and the radical option, which is that of the majority of the party. Its electoral potential was rather on the side of those disappointed with macronism or socialism, who want a transforming ecological force. He should have accepted the evidence that he had no chance of being elected, set the objective of his candidacy to weigh politically in the French political space, and announced that he would see, after the elections, with whom to negotiate to best challenge the future president on the ecological issue.
When Macron came to speak in the Parliament of Strasbourg in January, Jadot was very aggressive, which pleased the more radicals of the party. I think this was a mistake. He should have started by saying: “Mr. President, on Europe we have a common vision”, before moving on to criticism. Such a speech would have tickled quite a few Macron voters.
A minister of the current German government, Franziska Brantner, told me of her astonishment at the questions of young French journalists: they seem surprised to discover that in Germany, the Greens are a resolutely pro-European party, favorable to free trade and businesses… Are the green parties so different on both sides of the Rhine?
In formulating the challenges we face, the German Greens have a similar analysis to that of the French Greens. But in the way of doing politics, they do not understand the behavior of their counterparts. Again, this corresponds to a political climate in France. In France, “compromise” means “compromise”: it’s wrong. In Germany, on the contrary, you spend your time looking for compromises that force you to surpass yourself politically, not to stay in an ideological comfort that prevents you from accepting the contradictions of reality.
“The French have a binary vision of politics: the left is the left, the right is the right, Macron is the right, period”
German ecologists have evolved: they were initially “fundis”, fundamentalists who denounced capitalism and wanted a radical transformation of society, like the current French ecologists. They moved towards reformism and integrated regional and national parliaments. Today, they claim “a sense of responsibility” – that’s their formula. They stand for election obliging themselves to reflect on the majority they will choose to form after the elections, on the party with which they will be able to best implement the ecological transition, that is to say the fight against global warming.
The German Greens accept coalitions with the right as much as with the left, at regional and federal level. French ecologists prefer to ally only with Nupes, even if it means denying a European commitment which is part of their DNA, rather than with Macron. Why ?
The French have a binary vision of politics: the left is the left, the right is the right, Macron is the right, period. In Germany, the Greens are firm on their fundamentals: the energy transition within the framework of the European Union. They assess which alliance is best to achieve this, how they can act and with whom. They are able to ally themselves on the right as well as on the left depending on the compromises they find to negotiate a regional or federal government program. What overdetermines the political culture in Germany is proportional representation. There is only one election round. Any party that exceeds 5% will be represented at regional or national level.
When there is an election in Germany, there are very tough and aggressive debates. But whether you are liberal (FDP), conservative (CDU), social democrat (SPD), Green or even from Die Linke, the German equivalent of La France insoumise, you know that the day after the elections you are in able to find themselves negotiating around a table. It changes everything.
What will the environmentalists do if the macronists do not obtain an absolute majority in the legislative elections?
It will be interesting. The components of the Nupes being supposed to be autonomous groups, if the Socialists and the Greens obtain approximately 35 seats each, will they have the intelligence to attempt a negotiation with the presidential majority? Today, climate awareness is widely shared in society and by political parties. We can say what we want, Macron’s speech makes it entirely possible for the Greens and the Socialists to negotiate a political compromise given the urgency of the energy transition.
And if they reproach the president for his broken words, they should precisely have the nerve, the lucidity, the political courage to weigh in to force him to keep his word. But right now that’s out of their minds. They are ideologically blocked. They prefer to submit to the ideology of La France insoumise and rally to an anti-European program in the name of a cynical calculation which demonstrates that, for them, attachment to Europe is only a side effect. They will prefer to favor an alliance between the presidential alliance and the Republicans to denounce it, rather than take their responsibilities.
Was it for similar reasons that you had broken with the French Greens more than ten years ago?
No, it was more personal. It happened after the European elections of 1999 and 2009 where I was at the top of the list in France. The French Greens accept a strong personality, with a minority political position, to win. Once the elections are over, we say to him: “Come on my child, now you stay in Brussels and you stop bothering us.” It is a party that is very democratic in its speeches and very sectarian in its behavior. It happens today to Jadot what happened to me: he was useful for the Europeans, his positioning was accepted for the time it took, but today his campaign difficulties have demonetized him.
In Germany, on the other hand, the two leaders of the Green Party, Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, respectively Minister for the Ecological Transition and Minister for Foreign Affairs, have established themselves as the most powerful personalities in the Scholz government. Do they have a recipe from which the French Greens could draw inspiration?
What is unprecedented, after five months of this new government and according to all the polls, is that Robert Habeck has a real chance of becoming the next German Chancellor, and therefore the first Green Chancellor, at the head of a coalition negotiated with both the SPD social democrats and the CDU Christian democrats… the miracle of a political culture over-determined by proportional representation. Annalena Baerbock turns out to be a very good minister, but Habeck has the most difficult task: he must assume the ecological transition during the war in Ukraine, despite the legacy of Merkel and the social democratic party of total dependence on towards Russia.
If you want to learn how to be a good politician, watch Robert Habeck. To be a good politician is not only to know how to decide, it is to be able to explain to society its hesitations and the contradictions of its own action. This is the pinnacle of reformism. Robert Habeck is a genius at explaining. I give you an example. In the face of the war in Ukraine, one of the big problems is our dependence on gas. Lots of people, including me, have said that Germany should enact the Russian gas embargo to stop funding the war. Economic institutes have assured that the effect would not be greater than 2 or 3% of GDP. To justify his reluctance, Chancellor Scholz questioned the institutes. Habeck went on television. He said: “I have read the studies. The problem with such an economic projection is that it is based on the experiences of the past, and that we have no example of a situation where, from day to next day, a country ends 70% of its energy supply. If the economic institutes are wrong, they correct it. If I am wrong and the country finds itself with 5 or 6 million unemployed, I will not be able to say ” I was wrong, it happens in life.’ My responsibility is there.”
Will the Greens ever come to power in France?
I am unable to say. It will depend on the evolution of the personalities who will be in this party and on the experience of the German Greens in government. If in three years, their balance sheet is positive, it will call into question, perhaps, the ideological fundamentals of the French Greens.