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Antoine Waechter (born 11 February 1949) is a French politician, leader of theIndependent Ecological Movement.
Antoine Waechter was born on 11 February 1949 in Mulhouse, (Haut-Rhin). He began activism early, and by 1965 had found the Mulhouse chapter of the Young Friends of Animals. His doctoral dissertation atLouis Pasteur University inStrasbourg focused on "ethology and ecology of theBeech Marten."[1] In the late 1960s and 1970s, he fought for the preservation of wildlife and natural areas across France, such as reintroducingbeavers inAlsace and arguing against road construction or industrial sites in and aroundVanoise National Park. He became regional president and then secretary general of the Alsace Federation within the Regional Association for the Protection of Nature (which was the regional branch of the French Federation of Humane Societies of Nature and Environment, now calledFrance Nature Environment).
Joined bySolange Fernex andHenri Jenn in 1973, Waechter participated in the beginnings of one of the first environmental political movements in France: Ecology and Survival (Écologie et Survie). He was also a member of theEcological Movement founded in after the1974 presidential candidacy ofRené Dumont. Beginning with their inception in 1984, Waechter was one of four national spokespeople for theGreens.
Waechter was the face of thel'écologie n'est pas à marier campaign that helped his followers win a majority in the general meeting of the Greens in 1986. This movement within the Greens reaffirmed the strict autonomy as well as ideological and electoral independence following entreaties by the "left of the left" led byYves Cochet. Because of this intra-party support, Waechter was one of the most influential figures in the Green Party until his departure in 1994. He was also the Green candidate in thepresidential election of 1988, receiving 3.78% of the vote in the first round, ranking behindAndré Lajoinie (French Communist Party) and beforePierre Juquin (splinter of theFrench Communist Party).
In March 1989 he became a municipal councillor in Mulhouse. At the same time, Waechter's 1988 campaign manager,Jean-Louis Vidal, became the first Green elected inParis, illustrating the Greens were viable in major cities. Three months later, in June 1989, the list Waechter led forEuropean elections obtained 10.8% of the vote (1,922,945 votes) and 9 seats, the best result ever obtained by the Greens in EP elections until 2009. He then became a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). In March 1992, the Greens andEcology Generation (led byBrice Lalonde) each obtained about 7% of the vote, and Waechter became a councillor in theAlsace Regional Council.
During the 1993 general meeting of the Greens inLille,Dominique Voynet, who was the spokesperson of opposition, defeated Waechter for the leadership of the Greens. In Lille and under the leadership of Voynet, the Greens decided to negotiate electoral alliances during the first round of the presidential election exclusively with theLeft. It marked the end for the theory ofNi Ni, which argued that the Greens could align themselves with one side or the other depending on the offers made. This change of strategy, and the ensuing tensions within the movement, led to the departure of Waechter from the Greens. He then founded theIndependent Ecological Movement (Mouvement Ecologiste Indépendant - MEI) in 1994, which hoped to replace the Greens as the major Green party. However, due to the Green's electoral deals with larger parties, MEI failed to garner more than a few hundred supporters. MEI claimed to be purely ecologist, and neither on the left or right. The next year, Waechter failed to win enough endorsements to be a candidate in the1995 French presidential election.
After leaving the Greens, Waechter practically disappeared from the French political scene for years. He attempted to be a candidate in every presidential election since 1995, but never obtained the required signatures of elected officials. (The MEI eventually chose author and TV reporterNicolas Hulot as its candidate in 2007, however Hulot withdrew after five of the 12 candidates in the French Presidential election signed the "Pacte Ecologique", affirming that ecological problems would be the key in all the future decisions concerning every political subject.[2]) By virtue of the sheer number of Green supporters and elected representatives, the Greens have maintained the political visibility MEI has never been able to obtain. During Waechter's participation in the Green'sjournées d'été in August 2003, the French press openly wondered whether he would rejoin the movement he had left nine years earlier. Later, in 2005, Waechter came out in favor of ayes vote on theTreaty establishing a Constitution for Europe referendum, whereas the majority of MEI votedno in an internal referendum. He replaced his opponents in the National Council, which brought a slew of departures of members and officials, some of whom rejoined the Greens and attended public meetings organized by the right.
Nevertheless, Waechter remained politically visible in the Alsace region, where the MEI list he led in the2004 regional elections passed the 5% threshold. This showing by MEI was made possible because no list was put forward by the Greens, who had integrated themselves with theSocialist Party list. As for theEuropean elections of 2009, after negotiations withEurope Écologie did not offer Waechter the head of its list in the Centre region, he joined theIndependent Ecological Alliance (Alliance écologiste indépendante - AEI), under the movementLa France en Action. In the end, AEI earned 3.63% of the votes cast nationally, while Europe Écologie won 16.28%. In November 2009, Waechter announced that MEI would rejoin Europe Écologie in Alsace for the2010 regional elections. Second on the list in the Haut-Rhin area behind spokeswoman of the GreensDjamila Sonzogni, Waechter was elected in the second round after agreeing to a merger with Socialist Party list.[3]
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