(Clean Energy Wire) French without focus on climate, voters to turn right. Far right.

The time of climate worries gathering the French around Green parties in the race for the European parliamentary elections has passed. In just five years, a series of crises have left global warming high and dry, making room for the far right’s “greenblaming” strategy which, based on the use of fallacious arguments, is turning the ecological transition into a scapegoat.

The climate activists who had pushed ecology higher on France’s list of concerns became “ecoterrorists;” the war in Ukraine has prompted the government to rethink the coal power phase-out and to bet big on liquefied natural gas instead; the country has repeatedly failed to meet the EU’s main targets on renewables; and in a cabinet reshuffle the energy transition portfolio was separated from the environment ministry… In short, the 2019 climate ambition dynamics broke against a backdrop of inflation, recurring power crises, international conflicts and health woes.

France’s contenders for seats in the European Parliament this year can’t seem to find a common ground over future energy and climate policies for the 27-member bloc, starting with the Green Deal. Political and economic instability is no friend to bold climate action, and the leader of the Rassemblement National list knows this: By exploiting this growing environmental divide and making campaigning against “punitive ecology” a new electoral asset – coupled with his anti-immigration stance – Marine Le Pen’s protégé, Jordan Bardella, has appealed to those who don’t want the nation’s response to climate change constrain their consumption habits. After finishing ahead of president Emmanuel Macron’s list in the previous EU election by a close margin, the French far-right party expects, once again, to score a victory over the party in power and the major left-wing lists. Only this time, it is going to be a crushing one.

Even if the “green” momentum has run out and environmental issues appear to have been reduced to a mere electoral tool, French citizens still perceive climate change as one of the top issues that the EU is facing. So, even though June 2024 will not qualify as another “climate election,” France’s politicians can no longer hope to escape their responsibilities in shaping stronger energy and climate policies, particularly when the election’s outcome may well determine their fate in the 2027 presidential election.