The Greens Les Verts | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Dominique Voynet |
| Founded | 20 January 1984 |
| Dissolved | 13 November 2010 |
| Merged into | Europe Ecology – The Greens |
| Headquarters | 247, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin F-75010 Paris |
| Ideology | Green politics Alter-globalization |
| Political position | Centre-left toleft-wing |
| European affiliation | European Green Party |
| European Parliament group | Greens/EFA |
| International affiliation | Global Greens |
| Colours | Green |
| Website | |
| http://www.lesverts.fr/ | |
The Greens (French:Les Verts[levɛʁ],LV; alsoLes Verts, Confédération écologiste – Parti écologiste,VEC) was aleft-wing tocentre-leftgreen-ecologist[1]political party in France. The Greens had been in existence since 1984, but their spiritual roots could be traced as far back asRené Dumont'scandidacy for the presidency in 1974. On 13 November 2010, The Greens merged withEurope Ecology to becomeEurope Ecology – The Greens.[2]
Since 1974, the environmentalist movement has been a permanent feature of the French political scene, contesting every election: municipal, national & European.
In the years following Dumont's challenge for the presidency, and prior to the formal confirmation of les Verts as political party, environmentalists contested elections under such banners asEcology 78,Ecology Europe andEcology Today. When, in 1982,the Ecologist Party merged withthe Ecologist Confederation, les Verts were born. Under the ideological guidance ofAntoine Waechter, the party in 1986 signalled a break with the traditional divide in French politics, declaring that environmental politics could not be "married" to either the left or the right (which gave rise to its famous slogan "ni droite, ni gauche" – "neither right, nor left"). Antoine Waechter ran in the1988 presidential elections, capturing 1,150,000 ballots (or 3.8%) in the first round of voting. But the major breakthrough came the following year when – again under the leadership of Waechter – the Greens polled 10.6% in the European parliamentary elections.
However, the party faced with another ecologist party:Ecology Generation led byBrice Lalonde, environment minister of PresidentFrançois Mitterrand and allied with theSocialist Party (PS). In this, if the ecologist parties benefited from the electoral decline of the PS in the beginning of the 1990s, the Greens competed for the leadership of the French ecologist movement. In the1992 regional elections, the Greens obtained 6.8% of votes and the presidency ofNord-Pas-de-Calais region. The next year, it scored 4.1% in thelegislative election while all of the ecologist votes represented 11%. But, without political allies in the second round, they failed to gain a parliamentary seat.
Waechter's influence was called into question in 1994 when the Greens decided to break with his policy of non-alignment, instead deciding to adopt a markedly left-wing stance. The move prompted Waechter to leave the Greens. He went on to found theIndependent Ecological Movement. In the following presidential election of 1995,Dominique Voynet polled a modest 3.8% but, in due to the marginalisation ofEcology Generation, the Greens captured the leadership into the family of the Frenchpolitical ecology.
Component ofPlural Left coalition, the Greens obtained for the first time a parliamentary representation in1997.Dominique Voynet was to lead the party into government for the first time, joiningLionel Jospin'sSocialist Party (PS) and theCommunist Party (PCF). Voynet was rewarded with the cabinet position of Minister for the Environment and Regional Planning, before being replaced byYves Cochet in 2001.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit (or "Danny the Red"), a leader of the1968 student uprising, spearheaded the party's1999 European campaign, obtaining 9.7% of votes cast, enough to return seven deputies toStrasbourg.
Alain Lipietz was first selected to represent the Greens in the2002 presidential elections but his public outings proved awkward and he was soon replaced byNoël Mamère who had initially lost theprimary elections. Mamère's 5.25% represents the strongest Green challenge for the presidency to date. However, the legislative elections were a major disappointment: with just 4.51% of votes cast nationally, the Greens’ representation fell from six to just three deputies (out of a total of 577) in theNational Assembly.
Following the return to opposition benches in 2002,Gilles Lemaire assumed the position of national secretary. His tenure is marked by a period of internal strife in the party. Lemaire was in turn replaced byYann Wehrling, who seemingly united a majority of the membership under a text outlining the future direction that the party hoped to pursue. He was succeeded byCécile Duflot in 2006, who was the party's youngest National Secretary at the age of 31. She announced her resignation in May 2012 after being appointed to the new cabinet appointed by PresidentFrançois Hollande.
Les Verts had sixMEPs elected in the 2004 European Election with 8.43% of the vote.
In the hugely divisive 2005 referendum on theEuropean Constitution, the Greens campaigned for a Yes vote.
In the2007 French presidential election, les Verts nominatedDominique Voynet. Her low score of 1.57% in the first round was the party's worst electoral result, and the French ecologist's worst showing sinceRené Dumont in the1974. The party refused an electoral deal with theSocialists for theJune legislative election. However, the three Green incumbents,Noël Mamère,Yves Cochet, andMartine Billard had no PS opposition in their respective constituencies. While the Green's vote share was down from 2002, it won a fourth seat inNantes whereFrançois de Rugy defeated a conservative UMP incumbent. The Greens now had four seats in the Assembly and sat with thePCF in theDemocratic and Republican Left group.
In the2009 European Parliament election, the party was an integral part of theEurope Écologie coalition, led byDaniel Cohn-Bendit, which gained 8 seats for a total of 14 on a 16.3% of the vote. Since November 2010, it merged with the coalition to becomeEurope Ecology – The Greens.
One of the party's co-founders,Ginette Skandrani, had long attracted criticism due to her involvement withHolocaust deniers.[3]TheStephen Roth Institute criticized the Green Party in 2004, calling its record "tainted by abortive attempts to expel from within its ranks notorious anti-Jewish activist Ginette Skandrani herself ethnically Jewish[4] who has close contacts with Holocaust deniers."[5]
Other critics, such asRoger Cukierman of theRepresentative Council of French Jewish Institutions did not attack the party as a whole, but rather itsanti-Zionist wing, claiming that it promoted a "brown-green alliance".[3]
In June 2005, the Greens voted to permanently expel Skandrani. Among the reasons for her definitive expulsion were her participation in the holocaust-denial websiteAAARGH (Association des anciens amateurs de récits de guerres et d'holocaustes).[3] Patrick Farbiaz, a Green leader involved in her expulsion, argued that "although she has not written [anti-Semitic texts] herself, she looks like a kingpen of holocaust deniers and avowed antisemites".[3]
The party had previously expelled another co-founder (in 1991),Jean Brière, for signing a text addressing the alleged "war-causing role" of Israel and "thezionist lobby in theGulf War."[3]
Green MEPHelene Flautre has attracted controversy by calling for the lifting of sanctions against Turkish Cypriots imposed by the United Nations.
The youth branch of the Greens, founded in Strasbourg in 2001, is calledLes Jeunes Verts – la Souris verte (Young Greens – the Green mouse). It has been part of theFederation of Young European Greens since 2006.
Most internal divisions within the party concern the party's political position (neither right nor left, or left-wing) and electoral strategy (alliance with the PS or thefar-left parties).
The party's final leadership, led byCécile Duflot, and includingDominique Voynet,Yves Cochet andNoël Mamère were positioned between the two aforementioned factions.
The Greens held 41 town halls,[when?] the largest city beingMontreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis). Other cities held by the Greens includeWattwiller,Bègles andMèze.[7] The party also claims 168 regional councillors and 14 general councillors (plus 9 Parisian councillors).
The Greens were strong electorally in urban areas, specifically in theGreater Paris area,Brittany and western France, parts of theRhône-Alpes region andAlsace. In the 2009 European elections, the Greens won their best result outside ofCorsica, where their result was due to the support of theParty of the Corsican Nation (PNC), in the city of Paris (27.41%),[8]Haute-Savoie (20.26%),[8]Drôme (21.75%),[9]Isère (21.64%),Hauts-de-Seine (20.74%),Ille-et-Vilaine (20.59%), andLoire-Atlantique (20.16%). It also did very well in large, wealthy urban centres such asRennes orGrenoble. It does more poorly in rural areas, notably areas where its rival,CPNT, is strong. It also did poorly in industrial or poorer urban areas; for example it won only 9.33% in thePas-de-Calais, a department formerly dominated by coal mining, in 2009.[10]
| Election | Candidate | First round | Second round | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
| 1988 | Antoine Waechter | 1,149,897 | 3.8% | - | - | Lost |
| 1995 | Dominique Voynet | 1,010,738 | 3.3% | - | - | Lost |
| 2002 | Noël Mamère | 1,495,724 | 5.3% | - | - | Lost |
| 2007 | Dominique Voynet | 576,666 | 1.6% | - | - | Lost |
| Election year | # of 1st round votes | % of 1st round vote | # of seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 340,109 | 1.21% | 0 |
| 1988 | 86,312 | 0.35% | 0 |
| 1993 | 1,022,196 | 4.08% | 0 |
| 1997 | 1,738,287 | 6.83% | 7 |
| 2002 | 1,138,222 | 4.51% | 3 |
| 2007 | 845,977 | 3.25% | 4 |
| Election year | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | # of overall seats won | +/- | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 680,080 | 3.4 (#5) | 0 / 81 | ||
| 1989 | 1,922,945 | 10.6 (#4) | 9 / 81 |  9 | |
| 1994 | 574,806 | 3.0 (#8) | 0 / 87 |  9 | |
| 1999 | 1,715,450 | 9.7 (#4) | 9 / 87 | 9 | |
| 2004 | 1,271,394 | 7.4 (#5) | 6 / 78 | 3 | |
| 2009 | 2,803,759 | 16.3 (#3) | 14 / 72 | 8 |
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