On Thursday June 21st President François Hollande formally announced his second government under prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. Though the first government had only been formed on May 16th, soon after Hollande's win in the presidential election, constitutional protocol demanded that a new government be formed after June's parliamentary elections.
There were few major changes, though the number of ministers rose from 34 to 38. All the senior ministers named in the first government retained their place – except one. To widespread amazement the environment minister Nicole Bricq was moved sideways to become minister in charge of foreign trade.
Immediately question marks were raised about the reasons for moving a minister so soon from this important and challenging department, a move that came as a complete surprise to people in regular contact with the ministry. “I saw her last week and met one of the members of her office yesterday, there was not the slightest inkling of a change,” said Benoît Hartmann, spokesman for the environment group France Nature Environnement (FNE) speaking just after the announcement of Bricq's departure.
An environmental expert also revealed: “I had a meeting with her office tomorrow and with her next week, and a socialist MP was telling me just a few days ago of his joy at seeing the environmental centre at the Socialist Party being reconstituted at the ministry. Nothing pointed to this happening.” Meanwhile an elected official who saw the minister at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil last week said shortly after the news: “I saw Nicole Bricq yesterday at Rio, she was not on the way out,” he said.
Nicole Bricq's sideways move to trade cannot be considered a promotion, not least because the environment ministry's position had been boosted by the addition of the energy portfolio to it. Some believe her departure was more linked to her losing out in a power struggle over the granting of drilling permits to oil giant Shell off the coast of French Guiana (1).
The week before the portfolio was taken away from her, Bricq had announced the temporary freezing of licences for exploratory drilling for oil off the South American mainland. Justifying her decision, the minister had said the drilling did not have “sufficient benefits for the national interest” and that the “consideration given to environmental problems is not satisfactory”. The minister said that above all she wanted to rewrite the code on mining and drilling for natural resources, with the aim of putting more restrictions on companies holding licenses.
However, a week later the issue was taken over by the prime minister's office and Guiana's prefect received authorisation to sign the official decrees allowing the resumption of the work, to the dismay of environmental groups. The head of prime minister Ayrault's private office, Christophe Chantepy, had earlier received a visit from Laurence Parisot, head of the employers' organisation Medef, who was very concerned about the freezing of the licenses. She said the move raised doubts over whether the state's commitments could be relied upon. Was there, then, a risk that the government could find itself in legal difficulty with oil firms, and particularly French oil giant Total, which is linked to oil exploration off Guiana?
One of Bricq's advisers admitted that they expected some fallout over her decision. “We thought that Gérault Guibert, the head of her private office, risked having to go, but not the minister," he said.
Meanwhile, the head of one non-governmental organisation claims that Shell's oil exploration platform, which was heading to Guiana from South Korea, never once deviated from its course. He sees this as a sign that the multinational oil firm had been sure that it would get its way over the licenses.
During his election campaign François Hollande made clear his opposition to the exploration of what are called non-conventional hydrocarbon resources. “Whatever the method of extraction, I am in favour of a clear ban on the exploitation of shale gas and oil,” he replied to questions from environmental campaign group Greenpeace.
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1: French Guiana or Guyane as it is known in French is an overseas region and department of France on the South American mainland, bordering Brazil and Suriname.
'Disaster for the environment'
But he was much less opposed to the idea of off-shore drilling for oil and gas, despite concerns over their risks to the environment. “These explorations must be subject to more restrictive European regulation,” he responded to the same questionnaire from Greenpeace. Talking to the newspaper France-Guyane he was even more open to the idea of such drilling when it involved Guiana. “What we must make sure is that we get the financial benefits here, in Guiana, of the exploitation of a natural resource,” he noted.
Beyond the narrow question of the Shell drilling permits, the question raised by this affair is that of the reform of the code governing the exploitation of natural mineral resources. This code currently gives almost total freedom to the holders of a license. Opponents of shale gas and oil have repeatedly called for the creation of greater transparency over information, for consultation with local people and the taking into account of the damage caused by the drilling to the environment.
Work on this reform had begun under Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, environment minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, and up until now it had been a top policy priority for Nicole Bricq. This stemmed from her opposition to shale gas when she was in opposition.
Had she gone too far and too fast on this issue in relation to the wishes of the president? “Nicole Bricq is an independent woman,” points out a member of the government. The coincidence of the Shell affair and her departure from government is certainly striking. And since the episode last year in which an agreement between the Socialist Party and the French Green party Europe Ecologie-Les Verts was secretly modified after the intervention of French nuclear firm Areva, it is known that the socialists are susceptible to pressures from lobbyists.
However, another government member denies that the Shell decision was a factor in Bricq's departure. Instead he says it was because of Ségolène Royal's failure to win a seat at La Rochelle in June's parliamentary elections and the need to keep this important figure in the Socialist Party happy in the reshuffle. “The most important factor was that there was an opportunity in which to make places for Royal's friends [in the government] and so a major ministry had to be freed up,” he said.
It was already clear that justice minister Christiane Taubira and her junior minister Delphine Batho – an ally of Royal who was a spokesperson for Hollande during his presidential campaign – were unable to work well together. However Batho was expected to join Manuel Valls's team at the Ministry of the Interior. Instead she was made environment minister in place of Bricq.
Another theory is that it was Nicole Bricq herself who wanted to change portfolio. “She and her team seemed lost,” claims one senior figure, a member of the national environmental and sustainable development committee the Comité national du développement durable et du Grenelle environnement (CNDDGE) which oversees the progress of the environment ministry. “They didn't seem to have got a grip of the issues. Five years ago the first meetings with [environment minister Jean-Louis] Borloo were astounding because they went off in all directions,” says the official. “But he was there and totally involved. She seemed lost.”
The official continued: “There had perhaps been a misunderstanding. For many people the environment ministry is still a small portfolio, with a narrow mission. In fact in reality there are 118,000 officials to manage. It's an operational ministry with workers, centres for technical studies and public works.”
Yet a month and a half into her stint as minister Bricq had still not called the relevant trade unions in for a meeting. An environmental conference which will bring together all the main players in sustainable development and the environment that was first announced for July was in the process of being pushed back to September. At the last meeting to discuss it, not a single member of her private office turned up. Yet it is hard to imagine that organizational problems and co-ordination with the prime minister’s office could, on their own, be behind Bricq's departure.
“Whether Nicole Bricq was moved simply to make an adjustment to the government team or because of the Shell permit issue, either way it is disastrous for the environment,” says an advisor to one leading environmental organisation. For Delphine Batho, who fought on the side of organic farming during a parliamentary debate and vote in 2008 on the use of genetically modified crops, her first task will be to persuade environmentalists of her desire to carry on the work of her predecessor.
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- The full list of the new French government announced on June 21st, 2012:
Jean-Marc Ayrault, Prime Minister.
Manuel Valls, Minister of the Interior.
Christiane Taubira, Minister of Justice.
Pierre Moscovici, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade.
Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister of Defence.
Vincent Peillon, Minister of Education.
Marisol Touraine, Minister of Health and Social Affairs.
Delphine Batho, Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy.
Michel Sapin, Minister of Labour, Employment, Professional Training and Social Dialogue.
Arnaud Montebourg, Minister of Productive Recovery.
Nicole Bricq, Minister for Foreign Trade.
Aurélie Filippetti, Minister of Culture and Communications.
Geneviève Fioraso, Minister of Higher Education and Research.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister of Women’s Rights, Government spokeswoman.
Stéphane Le Foll, Minister of Agriculture and Agroalimentary Industry.
Cécile Duflot, Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing.
Marylise Lebranchu, Minister of State Reform, Decentralisation and the Civil Service.
Victorin Lurel, Minister of French Overseas Territories.
Valérie Fourneyron, Minister of Sport, the Young, Popular Education and Associative Activity.
Junior Ministers:
Alain Vidalies, Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament for the Prime Minister.
Jérôme Cahuzac, Secretary of State for the Budget, under the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade.
Benoît Hamon, Secretary of State for Social and Socially-Cohesive Economic Activities and Consumption, under the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade.
George Pau-Langevin, Secretary of State for Educational Success, under the Ministry of Education.
Delphine Batho, Secretary of State, under the Ministry of Justice.
François Lamy, Secretary of State for Urban Affairs, under the Ministry of Territorial Equality and Housing.
Bernard Cazeneuve, Secretary of State for European Affairs, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Yamina Benguigui, Secretary of State for Francophone Culture under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Pascal Canfin, Secretary of State for Development Aide, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Michèle Delaunay, Secretary of State for Elderly People and the Dependant, under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.
Dominique Bertinotti, Secretary of State for Family Affairs, under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.
Marie-Arlette Carlotti, Secretary of State for the Handicapped, under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs
Sylvia Pinel, Secretary of State for Trade, Small Professional Businesses and Tourism under the Ministry of Productive Recovery.
Fleur Pellerin, Secretary of State for Small- and Medium-sized Businesses, innovation and the Digital Economy, under the Ministry of Productive Recovery.
Frédéric Cuvillier, Secretary of State for Transport and the Maritime Economy, under the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy.
Kader Arif, Secretary of State for War Veterans, under the Ministry of Defence.
Guillaume Garot, Secretary of State for the Agroalimentary Industry, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Agroalimentary Industry.
Thierry Repentin, Secretary of State for Professional Training and Apprenticeships, under the Ministry of Work and Employment.
Anne-Marie Escoffier, Secretary of State for Decentralisation, under the Ministry of State Reform, Decentralisation and the Civil Service.
Hélène Conway, Secretary of State for French Citizens Abroad, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.