Editorial of the “World”. Since the start of the presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron had the greatest difficulty in explaining to the French why he was seeking a second term. Saturday April 16, in Marseille, he found a goal, exposed a vision, launched a challenge. Confessing failings, delays, missteps, he has set himself the goal of making France a “great ecological nation”, “the first out of gas, oil and coal”. In the process, he promised “to go twice as fast in reducing greenhouse gases”, while his mandate remains marked by the abandonment of the carbon tax, following the movement of “yellow vests”.
This “new aim” worn by a President of the Republic who has been, throughout his five-year term, accused by environmental organizations of not acting sufficiently against global warming can be questionable. Especially since it did not occur spontaneously. It results from the pressure exerted by the good score of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the presidential election. Having become the herald of ecological planning, the “rebellious” won 22% of the votes cast on April 10 and achieved significant scores among those under 35. The way in which its voters will refer to the second round has become decisive, while the only instruction they have received is not to give their vote to Marine Le Pen.
New approach
In order not to cut themselves off from a youth who, faced with climate change and the degradation of biodiversity, dreams of another world, exasperated that nothing is moving fast enough, Emmanuel Macron had to send strong signals. . He took up the notions of “ecological planning” and D’“common future” developed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He endorsed several commitments contained in the candidate’s project, such as the thermal renovation of 700,000 housing units per year over the entire duration of the five-year term. On the other hand, he assumed two fundamental disagreements, one on nuclear power, the other on degrowth.
The most interesting part of Marseille’s speech focused on how, concretely, the outgoing president would go about, if re-elected, to fulfill his ambition. The resignation of Nicolas Hulot, whom he had appointed in 2017 Minister of State, Minister of Ecological and Solidarity Transition, with the rank of number three in the government, remains a bitter failure. On leaving his ministry, the environmental activist had lamented his extreme loneliness in the midst of governmental and administrative structures which continued to think and function as before.
Emmanuel Macron draws lessons from these blockages. In the scheme he defends, it is the Prime Minister, in charge of interministerial affairs, who would pilot ecological planning, supported by two ministers « forts »one responsible for “energy planning”, the other of the “territorial ecological planning” in conjunction with local elected officials.
Everything in detail still remains to be invented, but the intention is finally assumed: public action, as a whole, must be rethought in the light of the ecological transition. At the same time, a new approach, less vertical, more participative, more decentralized, is taking shape, in an attempt to give substance to this revolution presented as the ambition of an entire nation. We can deplore that the moult takes place so late, but we can also rejoice that it is finally affirmed.