Regional and presidential polls over the next two years will show whether the “green wave” that surged through a swath of big French cities earlier this summer heralded a fundamental redrawing of the country’s politics – or a transitory ripple, reports The Guardian.
In June’s municipal elections, Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) – alone or at the head of leftwing majorities – held Grenoble, seized Annecy, Besançon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Poitiers and Strasbourg, and were part of winning coalitions in Paris and Marseille.
Amid a broad but not yet decisive advance by green parties across much of Europe, Yannick Jadot, an MEP and one of the French party’s most senior figures, hailed a “historic turning point”.
The results revealed “a desire for concrete ecology in action: solutions for commuting, housing, food, rebuilding local economies”, he said; France’s political landscape was being “remodelled around the theme of ecology”.
EELV aims to field a full list of candidates in regional elections due next year.
Ecology was “no longer a political add-on,” another MEP, David Cormand, said at the party’s summer conference last week. “We are moving from a force of opposition, to a force of government.”