Paris (AFP)
Brune Poirson, Secretary of State for the Ecological Transition, warned Tuesday against "a green populism", carried by "politicians ready to make believe anything", drawing a dry response from Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
"A real green populism is developing, argued the secretary of state, in an interview with Le Figaro. She pointed to a movement which" aims either to use ecology as an excuse to break the current system ", with reference to "on the far left with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Insoumis and Yannick Jadot at EELV", "or to praise an ecology of withdrawal, whose secret project is to close France in on itself and isolate it , as Marine Le Pen wants. "
According to Brune Poirson, the discourse of these opponents can be summed up by: "Here we could switch to 100% renewable energy in a few years, there we could remove all disposable plastics in as much time".
"Faced with them, any rational discourse on ecology is interpreted as a renunciation," deplored the secretary of state, reproaching her opponents for using "the anxiety created by the climate emergency to push the French to answer it with haste ".
The leader of the rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon called at the end of the day Ms. Poirson in the Assembly, during the final reading of the anti-waste bill: "I congratulate you on this neologism" on "green populism".
"Here is a new variety of this elusive object, populism (...). I want you to call me a green populist" but "yes, we must ban the use of plastic in an emergency time", a he pleaded.
The minister saw in this intervention "the very essence of green populism that I effectively denounced".
"Passing realism for a lack of ambition is extremely dangerous in the medium term", she considered in Le Figaro, defending the "realistic" policy carried by Emmanuel Macron on the subject, "less easy on a plateau but more efficient for the planet ".
Asked about Ségolène Royal, who intends to launch a movement to save the planet after leaving her post as ambassador of the poles, the secretary of state to Elisabeth Borne replied that it left her "frozen".
"Let us remember that this government takes care of the files it has not managed: the eco-tax and motorway tolls, Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport, Fessenheim," she said. "So much for the gap between words and deeds."
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