May 01, 2022

The future of France’s climate response under Macron

topic:	Election
located:	France
editor:	Abby Klinkenberg

On 20 April, the French electorate watched as President Emmanuel Macron and right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen verbally sparred in the election’s sole presidential debate. In the midst of their jousting dawned a moment of clarity: Macron called Le Pen a “climate sceptic;” Le Pen retorted that the President was “climate hypocrite.” Although barbed, neither accusation is necessarily wrong. On 24 April, the French electorate opted for the climate hypocrite. 

The election was not particularly close: Macron earned 58.6 percent of the vote, decisively defeating Le Pen. However, Macron’s victory was less a deliberate validation of his past term in office and more a refusal of his opponent, which disappointed on a number of fronts - particularly in terms of climate action. Entering his second five-year term, Macron has a set of new promises. It remains to be seen whether they will be actualised.

In the first round of France’s presidential elections, held on 10 April, left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon surprised many by garnering 22 percent of the vote by running on a strong climate platform. Mélenchon very nearly upset Le Pen, who earned her place in the final run-off election with 23.2 percent of the vote. In response, Macron began courting left-wing voters, noting that he “heard” the climate-conscious message that voters sent through their support for Mélenchon; Macron promised a “complete renewal” of his climate policy. 

Chief among Macron’s latest round of promises is his intention to select a prime minister with a mandate to be formally responsible for “ecological planning” - a notion popularised by Mélenchon - in terms of aligning the governmental stars to ensure a unified and sustainable pivot towards a greener future. While no name has been advanced, it seems most likely that either Labour Minister Elesabeth Borne or European Central President Christine Lagarde will get the nod, while a Mélenchon selection is unlikely.

Additionally, Macron will create two new ministerial positions: one tasked with “energy planning” (to make France “the first major nation to leave behind oil, gas, and coal”) and the other with “territorial ecological planning” (to manage transportation, logistics, housing renovation, and air, water and food quality). This climate action rebrand strives to address the issues of disjointed strategy and insufficient commitment alleged by Macron’s former Environment Minister Nicholas Hulot, who resigned in frustration only a year into his term, back in 2018. 

Macron has been particularly vocal in expressing his commitment to the green energy transition, especially in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine and attendant concerns with European consumption of Russian fossil fuels. As part of his plan to bend the arc of France’s future towards net zero carbon emissions, Macron plans to build 50 new offshore wind farms and increase the number of solar panels tenfold. Perhaps most importantly, the French president has advanced a plan to build 14 new nuclear reactors by 2050 while refurbishing France’s 56 existing nuclear plants. 

As recently as 2018, Macron operated according to the opposite conviction: he planned to shut down 14 reactors as part of a gradual shift away from reliance on nuclear energy. This kind of contentious about-face is not foreign to the Macron administration and reflects a wider lack of confidence in the integrity of his government’s climate policy.

A litany of climate-related faux pas have occurred under Macron, including a 2021 legal decision that found his government guilty of climate inaction. Perhaps the most egregious and demonstrative of his lack of followthrough is the situation that emerged from Macron’s highly anticipated brainchild: the Citizens’ Climate Convention (itself an attempted course correction after the Yellow Jacket demonstrations of 2018). Composed of 150 randomly selected French citizens asked to weigh in on climate policy, the Convention resulted in 149 recommendations. Only 18 of them were adopted unchanged; 80 percent were abandoned outright. Among the recommendations that Macron vetoed outright was the proposed taxation of corporate profits to support the green energy transition. 

After Macron’s environmentally disappointing first term, there is little reason to believe that his next will prove any different based on his track record. His recent slew of promises and blatant overtures to left-leaning voters invested in climate action may have won him the presidency - but now comes the hard part: following through. 

Image by Thomas Millot

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