While the environmentalist list is slipping in the polls for the European elections, the boss of the EELV party holds certain ministers and their strategy against the environmentalist cause responsible.
Environmentalists are moving forward in this electoral campaign with a headwind. The head of the list Marie Toussaint does not manage to impose itself in the results of the polls and she would tend to lose a few points according to the latest published studies: falling from 8% of voting intentions to 5.5%, or just at above the minimum threshold to obtain seats in the European Parliament. But these scores would not be due to a poor performance by the young environmentalist leader, rather to a “form of lobbying” seeking to sink the environmentalist cause, according to Marine Tondelier, guest of Public Senate this Thursday, April 11.
“We can clearly see that we are in a moment of ecological backlash,” insisted the national secretary of Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts. An expression chosen on purpose and originally used to designate the resistance and responses of conservative and masculinist groups to feminist struggles. The environmental activist therefore precisely identifies those whom she considers responsible for the campaign intended to discredit environmentalists: “I see very well by whom it is organized and why. That various interests have been mobilizing against the environment and ecology for years. decades, I think it’s massive. […] Ecology disturbs certain economic and financial interests. And according to her, the government is no stranger to this strategy.
Marine Tondelier cites the government’s positions on ecology as proof. She particularly points to the cuts made by the Minister of the Economy last February in the budgets devoted to ecology: 2.2 billion less. The announcement was made after Bruno Le Maire announced that he needed to make savings of 10 billion euros to compensate for the deficit. Parliamentarians reacted strongly to this decision and regretted that the greatest savings were made at the expense of research and the environment at a time of the climate crisis.
“The first bullet is always for ecology”
But it is not only on the financial level that ecology is harmed according to Marine Tondelier. Ecological measures are sometimes even described as the origin of problems before being reassessed and weakened: the activist lists the agricultural law as an example, after the farmers’ crisis at the start of the year, or even the relaxations on the objective zero net artificialization (ZAN) supposed to slow down the artificialization of land in France. These same measures would not be compatible with economic or other interests and “we prefer to designate environmentalists as guilty of everything” says the elected official but “all this is false”. “The first bullet is always for ecology. Except that ecology is the mother of all battles, if we win this battle, we will not fight the following ones” she still tries to explain. ‘explain.
Not only to undermine the program of the Europe-Ecologie-Les Vers party, this backlash also aims to discredit environmental activists according to Marine Tondelier. This is why the government applies a “double standard” between green activists and other security activists, according to her. This reproach is regularly made by left-wing elected officials after environmentalist demonstrations harshly reprimanded by the authorities, sometimes on the orders of the Minister of the Interior. Gérald Darmanin went so far as to speak of “ecoterrorism” in November 2022 after the clashes in Sainte-Soline. “I don’t think that the terrorist problem in France is environmental activists. No one is fooled by Gérald Darmanin’s little shenanigans on this subject” judges Marine Tondelier, however.