When the Gironde was burning, he was in Paris. This Wednesday, July 27, the forests of Hérault are on fire and here he is in Essonne. There is always talk of fires, of those stubble fires that have ravaged crops and destroyed houses, of those past, in 2018 and 2006, which teach how to replant. It is always a question of evoking the drought and the consequences of global warming which have suffocated the country in recent days. But Christophe Béchu, new minister for the ecological transition of an overheated country, gives the feeling, since his entry into government on July 4, of being out of time.
Calm when you should be agitated, serene when you should be worried. “When the fire breaks out, the priority of firefighters is not to receive personalities”he sweeps. “My subject is not to produce a sum of reactions piecemeal but to define a trajectory of public decisions that are based on a global decarbonization strategy. It’s probably less sexy but it’s more effective »he underlines, referring to a plan that will be presented in the fall where each measure will no longer be budgeted only in euros but also in tonnes of carbon avoided.
When he was appointed head of the ministry which oversees the portfolios of communities, transport, housing, ecology and rurality, the former mayor of Angers was dizzy. A man of the right assumed, he is not unaware of being at the head of the “ministry of the impossible”, that of “not enough” and contradictory injunctions. But deep down “Why am I doing politics? For that “he says, citing Richelieu’s will: “Politics is not the art of the possible, it is the fact of making possible what is necessary. »
Misunderstanding
Secretary general of Horizons, the party of Edouard Philippe who complained of having been mistreated during the first composition of the government of Elisabeth Borne at the end of May, the man is a political object not quite “macronist” but already hated by most environmentalists. His mandate barely started, he inherited the image of Emmanuel Macron, regularly accused of“climate inaction “. A reproach linked to the condemnation of the State in 2021.
A misunderstanding, eternally reminds the President of the Republic. “The convictions that there may have been in terms of justice or otherwise on climate inaction, as they say, they apply to the period preceding 2018. I was elected in May 2017 for the first time, so I’m willing to take it all but I’m not taking this”the Head of State was annoyed on July 20 during his trip to Gironde to the site of the megafires, affirming that France’s position in terms of respect for the environment is one of the most favorable in France. ‘Europe. “During the last five years, we have doubled the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions”he recalled during his interview on July 14.
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