2023-08-14 06:15:09
At first sight, the interest recently manifested by the Rassemblement national (RN) for ecology, described and analyzed in a survey by the Monde published on August 13, could be considered a victory for the latter. Climate concern is now so widely shared that no political party can neglect it. However, it would be wrong to rejoice. In the hands of far-right demagogues, the universalist and emancipatory idea of protecting the planet and living beings risks becoming a vehicle for false theories, nationalism and xenophobia, an instrument of social division, but also into a formidable political war machine.
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The ground has long been prepared by far-right theorists who have forged links between identity and ecological themes. Drawing a parallel between the protection of biodiversity and that of essentialized “races”, they thus sought to justify their defense of the withdrawal of peoples into themselves and their phobia of interbreeding. As for the “integral ecology” of fundamentalist Catholic inspiration, it associates protection of the planet and the human body to fiercely oppose abortion and medically assisted procreation.
Pure opportunism
Ecology according to Marine Le Pen, if it can be inspired by these fads, proceeds first of all from the desire to exploit the disarray caused by the climate crisis and its multiple consequences on the economy, employment and fashions. life, including transport and food. By promoting a “common sense ecology”, the RN intends to denounce anything that threatens to disrupt the way of life and consumption of the French in the name of the fight against greenhouse gas emissions. Rejection of wind turbines, of “zero artificialisation” of the soil, defense of the individual car, pavilions and productivist agriculture in the name of “rooting”. Everything is good to feed this pure opportunism intended to oppose “earthly common sense” and “boho urban ideology” and to prosper politically on the denunciation of bill increases and “punitive ecology”.
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Nourished both by an “agrarianism” which considers globalization and European policies as the enemies of immutable landscapes and by a flight towards techno-solutionism which sees in technological progress solutions to all climate problems, this vast operation of “greenwashing nationalist” according to the expression of the essayist Pierre Madelin could turn out to be politically formidable. After stealing secularism, patriotism and “work value” from the left, could the RN do the same with ecology?
Asking this disturbing question amounts to sending a double warning. To Emmanuel Macron who poses as the best bulwark against the arrival of the far right in power but whose responses to concerns about climate change remain weak, and whose announcements on “ecological planning” are constantly being postponed. But also to the left and the Greens, largely convinced that ecology can only be on their side, too often stuck in futile controversies foreign to the popular electorate. In the absence of concrete solutions, particularly in terms of lifestyle, purchasing power and taxation, to fairly distribute the cost of the climate transition, green ideas run a new danger: being stolen, diverted and then repainted brown.
Also read the survey: Article reserved for our subscribers Ecology, a land of conflict
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