Environment in the French Presidential elections – Part 1

In May 2007 the French people, me included, will vote for a new President for five years.

As I am French and very committed to environment, I decide from today on to write a series of articles on this topic and its place in the forthcoming elections. Every month until May, I will continue this series and show you how the environmental question is tackled by the main candidates.

The event this month is due to Mr. Nicolas Hulot, a TV producer and presenter of green documentaries that are widely seen in France ( the Ushuaïa series). As an ecologist by conviction, Mr. Hulot declared at some point that he could be a candidate to these elections. He wrote in the meantime a book on his program to be and demanded that other main candidates sign a treaty for a greener France.

Most candidates signed his treaty. This include three out of the four main political parties. The conservative party ( UMP ) signed it, as well as the Socialist Party (PS) and the UDF (center). The only main party which did not sign Mr. Hulot’s treaty is the National Front (FN – Far-right ).

These four parties total more than 85 % of vote intentions in the first voting round to be hold at the end of April. ( UMP : 35 % ; PS : 31 % ; FN : 13 % and UDF : 9 % ; Poll mentioned below. )

Mr. Hulot thus withdrew his candidacy this week. Nicolas Hulot is the president of a foundation for Nature and Man ( Fondation Nicolas Hulot pour la Nature et l’Homme ; website ) and more than 655,000 French signed his Challenge for Earth (Défi pour la Terre ; website ) in order to decrease greenhouse gases and energy use via various gestures.

According to a poll made for Le Figaro – LCI and RTL ( main newspaper, tv news channel and radio ), on January 17th , the environment defense is the 6th main topic of the elections according to French people. 27 percent of the people asked told that this very topic is important in the forthcoming elections.

6 thoughts on “Environment in the French Presidential elections – Part 1”

  1. Hi deary,

    We are three girls of a well-known French Radio for young people… (My english is rather bad, sorry)

    We are interested to quote you in our evening broadcast around April, before the election… We would be pleased to received you to speak to young people about the question of the environment… We are going to receive Nicolas Hulot as well… If you could be here at the same broadcast it would be great… We support Nicolas’s convictions (Hulot, not Sarko LoL)

    the last question: Do you speak french??? It is written that you’re french, but everything is in english in this website, so we misunderstand…

    You have to speak french, it is really important for us…

    thank you

    les filles du mouv’

  2. En français:

    On espere que tu viendras a l’émission. Grosse audience espérée… MAis force est de constater que les jeunes sont plus emballés par le rock et le libéralisme, l’accomplissement de soi-même que par le respect de la terre qui les porte!!!

    Nous les filles du mouv, au côtés de nicolas hulot, on est addict à fond!!!

    répond nous par Mail dès que tu as le temps… (ps: oui, comme sur la radio, ça peut te paraitre déplacé, mais on “tutoie” toujours) c pourquoi on te tutoie dans l’eMail. Jespere que ça ne te vexe pas.

    bonne soirée jeune homme

  3. OK, mille mercis pour votre invitation. je vous envoie un e-mail cette semaine pour confirmer tout çà et pour préparer ce qui doit etre fait.
    Amicalement,

    Edouard

  4. heya 🙂 (getting the mouv’, nice 😀 Are they still in Toulouse?)

    Did the far left parties sign the treaty? (ok I am lazy today)

  5. OK, sorry for holding back your comment on the thread. I wanted to allow it once I had more information on your question.

    Here is a quote from the newspaper le Figaro :

    ” Ségolène Royal, Antoine Waechter, France Gamerre, Jean-Marc Governatori, Corinne Lepage, François Bayrou, Marie-George Buffet, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Dominique Voynet et Nicolas Sarkozy ont signé ce matin le Pacte écologique de Nicolas Hulot.”

    So it seems that some far left parties did not sign Mr. Hulot’s treaty.

    Sincerely,
    Edouard

    > Les filles du Mouv’ : je vous ai envoyé ma réponse par mail hier comme promis. Je vous souhaite bonne réception et attend de vos nouvelles.

    Amicalement.

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