Is there hope for the French ecology movement?

Abstract

Despite a few years of success, the French green movement seemed to have collapsed by 1995. The situation was abruptly reversed by the 1997 legislative elections in which they obtained eight deputies and a government minister. To what extent have Les Verts managed to rebuild the movement in these two years? Is the recovery sustainable? The history of the movement illustrates the most important cleavages and shows that despite its claim of unity, the French movement has essentially been divided by ideology, strategy and leaders. With the disintegration of its structures over the last few years, the green movement has lost some of its expertise and political experience as many activists have given up on political ecology. Its image has been damaged by political inconsistencies, by internal infighting and by the stress on social issues at the expense of traditional environmental questions. Conscious of their drift and downward fall, activists have worked to rebuild unity. The recent electoral and political success of Les Verts masks a movement which is weakened and divided. Les Verts have now to convince their activists that the strategy of co‐operation with the socialists is worth pursuing.