Towards a green wave at the municipal level

Text by: Marine de La Moissonnière Follow

Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Perpignan, Rouen or Besançon. The list of cities where environmentalists could finish at the top of the first round of municipal elections is growing. Three weeks before the poll, the hypothesis of a green surge is confirmed.

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Environmentalists are carried by the times. Mild winter, heat waves in summer, fires, pollution peaks ... It becomes difficult to ignore the consequences of global warming. The European elections have shown it: the themes defended by the Greens are promising. There will also be a new Climate March in Paris and in several cities in France on March 14, the day before the first round.

However, this favorable context will not be enough. The environmental electorate is essentially young and urban. The Greens should therefore score very well in the big cities in the first round. But on the second, they should have trouble transforming the essay.

To win town halls, they absolutely have to convince them that they are capable of managing a city, not just taking care of trees and cycle paths. Yannick Jadot understood this. The strong man of EELV embarked since the beginning of the year on a grand tour of France. It makes candidates benefit from its reputation and encourages them.

" We must conquer power, not to occupy it, but to exercise it !" Exclaimed in early February the MEP at the meeting of David Belliard, EELV candidate for mayor of Paris. Our responsibility is no longer to comment, to alert, to green I don't know which political party. We are here to green society! With each trip, Yannick Jadot encourages his troops to put on the costume of the first town councilor. " Sweat the urge to be mayor !" "He urged them to Villeurbanne.

Candidates still a little green

Environmentalists still find it difficult to convince them that their shoulders are wide enough to govern. Their services during meetings or public speaking are not always up to par. The exercise is still new for some of them. Even though most of the heads of green lists have already been municipal councilors, environmentalists are more used to working in the shadows than being on the front lines.

However, they repeat it in all tones: they are ready to exercise power. Grégory Doucet, EELV candidate in Lyon leading in the polls, assures him: the Lyon ecologists have been working on their campaign since the end of 2018. Their program is complete and Grégory Doucet is fully operational.

" Before entering politics, I led teams of several hundred people in different countries in West Africa," he says . I managed budgets of several tens of millions of euros. "

Above all, he highlights the “ solid ” team that he has built around him. Profiles chosen for their skills and experience, " not for their political history ", insists Grégory Doucet who claims another way of doing things.

A pledge of credibility : the successful experience of Grenoble

To prove that they are capable of exercising power, the Greens also highlight the case of Grenoble, the only major French city managed by an ecologist, Eric Piolle. Elected in 2014, he is widely in the lead in the polls .

For the mayor of Grenoble, what he managed to do in his city, other environmentalists can perfectly do it elsewhere. “ It has been demonstrated that it works. Everyone promised collapse at some point. But it did not happen. On the contrary ! It works for the ecological transition, food, daily life, for the economic world ... "

Second round alliances

However, despite all their efforts, environmentalists will not do it alone. Where they have chosen to go solo - this is the case in the majority of large cities - they will have to form alliances in the second round, in particular with the socialists.

But they hope that the balance of power from the ballot boxes will confirm their leadership on the left. With obviously in the viewfinder, the presidential election of 2022.

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• 2020 municipal elections
• France

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