Serve 60% organic and local products and at least two vegetarian meals per week in the canteens, integrate citizens into local public policies, reduce the use of pesticides by 50% in agricultural areas… These are some of the ten measures emergency recommended by the signatories of the Power Pact to live in a forum unveiled this Wednesday.
Among them, unions, foundations, environmental or solidarity NGOs such as Emmaüs, the Salvation Army, the Climate Action Network or the Nicolas Hulot foundation. Ten days before the election, the former Minister of Ecology, tells us more exclusively about this unprecedented approach. He suggests that 900,000 candidates in municipal elections take these measures. And calls on voters to judge their programs through the prism of their commitment to ecological and united matters.
Never has ecology been so present in the programs of municipal candidates. Is there not a form of electoral expediency on the part of certain elected officials?
NICOLAS HULOT. We must not be naive, but we must stop the intention trials. The important thing is not to distinguish the sincerity or the non-sincerity of a candidate in this field, because nobody is in his head, but to check if he keeps a coherent speech. This is why, with the “Pact of the power to live” which brings together environmental and solidarity associations, unions and mutuals, we have designed a reading grid allowing voters to judge on the basis of the relevance of a program. It is clear, and I am delighted, that there is currently a fruitful rivalry between the candidates on the subject of the environment. But faced with this proliferation of promises, we suggest that citizens check whether their candidates' programs are coherent and demanding. I think there is good faith everywhere, but not everyone puts environmental and social issues at the heart of public policy. This will allow citizens to see more clearly because some elected officials, in all sincerity, sometimes make two or three local commitments and adorn themselves with ecological virtues. But at the same time, they have commitments or make investments that are totally contradictory.
What do you think ?
For example, there are announcements of tree planting operations, but on the other hand, we continue to cheerfully consume agricultural land. Likewise, should we continue to invest money to create thousands of roundabouts? Because they have limited budgets, local elected officials must ask themselves the right questions and make the right choices. Furthermore, during one of my last trips as minister with President Emmanuel Macron, I met the mayors of France in Saint-Brieuc. Their main request was to revitalize the heart of cities. But we must be consistent: if we want to give new life to our city centers, we must stop artificializing peri-urban areas. The artificialisation of soils is one of the plagues of our society, because it accelerates the erosion of biodiversity and compromises the ability to store carbon and adapt to climate change. This is why, among the ten essential ecological and social measures that we suggest to local elected officials to adopt, is the fight against concreteisation. Most of the time, elected officials do it by mimicry with neighboring cities or because the promoters have promised them the moon. But we must stop this unrestrained consumption of natural and agricultural spaces. We ask them to institute a moratorium on any opening or extension of large commercial or logistics areas from 2020.
But aren't local elected officials also faced with the problem of reconciling "end of the world" and "end of the month"?
My Earth Newsletter
Each week, environmental news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Of course, they too are torn between short-term and long-term issues, which makes certain decisions complicated. If you think long term, you tell yourself that you should ban cars in the city center for the health of your inhabitants. But if you think short term, you cannot penalize motorists by prohibiting them from driving. Sometimes, out of clumsiness more than out of bad intention, it has been possible to give the feeling that ecological measures were incompatible or irreconcilable with social protection issues. This is why I asked that the Ministry of the Environment be renamed the Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition. The interest of the Power to Live Pact that we carry with Laurent Berger and 53 other organizations is precisely to associate ecology and the social in a definitive way. Because these two issues can no longer clash.
It was precisely the increase in the carbon tax, an ecological measure, that had ignited the powder and caused the start of the Yellow Vests movement.
It was the failure to take into account the social reality and the difficulty of the French that set fire to the powder. This is why for any environmental decision, it is necessary to identify the citizens who can be penalized and help them to pass the course of this ecological transition. But with the Pact we repeat it: the ecology and the social must be, including at the local level, the prism which decides all investments, all orientations. We are not there to test mayors' intentions, but to guide them and ensure that they change scale. Because we can no longer be satisfied with small measures or displays.
Have some elected officials already taken the lead?
I see everywhere springing up initiatives in the social and ecological field. It is often at the local level that examples to emerge, such as those municipalities that set up organic food in canteens or launch a “housing first” plan targeting zero homeless people. These measures can become the national standards of tomorrow. When there is goodwill displayed on behalf of elected officials, it is necessary to accompany them, to guide them. It turns out that we have known these subjects for decades and that we can therefore be of good advice for voters, but also for candidates. Many local elected officials have turned to us for advice.
See ecology becoming a major electoral issue, should you be happy?
Right now, everyone claims to be green and social, and I have absolutely no irony in saying that. However, let us recognize that history proves those who have fought for the protection of the environment for decades. We made a lot of fun of environmentalists, whether associative or political, but if we had listened to them before, we would be in a less complicated situation. Let us also recognize the courage of the mayors who did not wait for reality to jump in our face to act and make difficult decisions. I am thinking in particular of a woman like Anne Hidalgo.
Can candidates labeled EELV make a big score during this election?
Honestly, I don't know how this societal backdrop will translate into electoral terms. But it would seem fair enough that those who were forerunners should not be overlooked and given thanks. At the same time, I believe that we have to get out of a partisan spirit, because it is our survival that is being played out. What is important is that this fertile rivalry during the elections advances the ecological and social cause and we need everyone's intelligence in this area. As for me, my role is to create bridges, not to divide society and to maintain a certain neutrality. But neutrality does not mean that I lose my demand.
When you left the government, you felt disillusioned about the capacity of the executive and the state to make France an example in terms of ecological transition.
Yes, because so much remains to be done. Today, the Affair of the Century announces that we have emitted in 2 months and 5 days all of the CO2 that we should emit in one year to respect the carbon neutrality to which France committed in 2050. A this rate will not be reached until 2085.
Do you rely more on the power of local elected officials?
At the national and local level, one thing deeply worries me: it is the distrust that many citizens have vis-à-vis politicians. We must be very careful with this, because our democracy is a magnificent but fragile gift. And our democracy is now tired and in danger. I find that this discredit is excessive, because there are in the political class, as in the society, people animated by the direction of the general interest and one cannot put everyone in the same bath. At the local level, the discredit towards the elected officials often comes from the fact that the citizens vote for them but then discover during the mandate of their mayor projects which come out of nowhere and with which they have not been associated. A true participatory democracy implies a permanent dialogue. Not a deaf dialogue, as has often been the case during local public consultations where we pretend to hear the opinions of citizens without ultimately taking them into account. It is this way of doing politics that causes the elected officials to be discredited, both locally and nationally. And it is very dangerous because, if we continue, it is our democracy that can be undermined in its foundations.