Climate change: French scientists concerned about a far-right election victory

Activists and scientists have raised their concerns about what a National Rally victory might mean for the country's climate and environment policy. Francis plans to expand renewable energy and move away from fossil fuels is under threat from Marine Le Pen's far right nationalists, which have vowed to scrap some key environment policies. We're going to talk more about that now with our environment editor, Valerie Decamp. Valerie, first of all, what do we know about about their environment policies if they were to win a majority of seats? Well, they regularly denounce what they call called punitive green norms imposed by Brussels or or Paris, which punish people, which are in their view detrimental to French voters. And this has pretty much become their trademark and a common thread in their policy making. So if you look at their policy program, for example, when it comes to renewable energy, the party has vowed to end subsidies for wind power, cancel all wind power projects and also even dismantle wind farms. They also have plans to abandon a ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035. This was something that was decided in Brussels. And they also have a plan to loosen housing renovation requirements, which make it illegal to rent an apartment that is not energy efficient, for example. So despite these measures, what's interesting is that the National Rally doesn't say that they want to abandon Francis pledge to become carbon neutral by 2050. But, but according to the energy advisor of the party, they want to get there, but with different measures. This according to an interview that they recently gave. And so they want to focus on something different. They want to invest a lot on nuclear power, on nuclear reactors, and they also want to develop other fuels such as hydrogen. The problem though, is that putting new, you know, building new nuclear reactors, it will take years before they actually come onto the grid. And new fuels such as hydrogen, well, those are relatively on the experimental side of things for now. And that is why, you know, overall, the environment has taken a backseat during this campaign, even though, as you were saying, scientists and activists have, you know, raised alarm bells about what it could actually mean to have, you know, the National Rally in power and whether it could lead to environmental rollbacks, as we saw just now. And I want to end with Francis Francis left wing paper Liberation, which dedicated its front page to, you know, this question of what it actually means, a front National Rally in power. And their conclusion, their take was National Rally, a vote against nature. So there you see how, you know, French papers, some of them are reacting to what's happening now in France. So has this rejection of environmentalism become a driving force really behind Francis far right vote? Well, the National Rally has certainly tapped into the anger and the fear among some voters that climate policies are hitting their wallets and are also heating their freedom of choice. For example, you know, choosing to drive a car as opposed to riding a bicycle. And the environment used to be largely absent from the National Rallies policy program, but now it has become powerful, powerful political tool. And their strategy has been to capitalize on issues that have become very controversial on tensions generated by the green transition. And the first example of that was during the yellow vest crisis in which they positioned themselves as the party against environmental norms and protecting the people and protecting people from those environmental norms that could be detrimental to them. And this is obviously also fed into their broader narrative of anti EU, anti elite sentiment. And the wind power campaign is one of those examples. The recent farming crisis is another example of that. And, you know, overall surfing on this sort of green backlash wave has allowed the party to retain some of its voters because we know according to recent surveys, that 48% of national National Rally voters are skeptical, skeptical about the role of humans in global warming. And it has also allowed them to attract, attract new voters because even though an overwhelming majority of people in France do believe that climate change is real, there's also the belief that the measures put forward in order to respond to the climate crisis. Well, they were actually designed by the elite, by people, by urban elites who are disconnected, you know, from the reality of people perhaps in rural areas or in other parts of the country. And so that has certainly fed into the right wing vote. I do want to say though, Jeannie, is that this fear and this anger generated perhaps by the green transition is, of course, very real and justified of the fear of actually being left behind. This is something that's called, you know, climate justice, not just having a green transition, but a just transition. And I think what this is showing now in France is that parties not only need to come up with with, you know, climate plans, but they also need to come up with plans that are just and reassuring people that there's actually a safety net for them when those plans are actually implemented. All right, Valerie, thanks so much for that. Valerie de Kemp there, our environment editor on France 24.