Has the climate referendum been buried?

The Élysée formally denies it Sunday, May 9, after the start of a controversy.

In an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, the deputy LREM Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade nevertheless considered that the referendum was compromised and accuses the majority right in the Senate of having de facto blocked the consultation aimed at including the fight for the climate in the Constitution, by rewriting the proposal voted on by the deputies. 

"The right-wing senatorial majority has chosen to empty of its substance the proposal for the citizens' convention for the climate, and therefore to prevent the agreement" between the two chambers of Parliament, says the rapporteur of the law.

"As it stands, the conditions for the referendum are not met," he adds. 

Ecology is a priority, according to the Élysée 

The Élysée assured for its part that the modification of Article 1 of the Constitution to include the guarantee of the preservation of the environment and biodiversity was "in no way 'buried'". "The battle is not over: as it has been since the start of the five-year term, the ecological cause remains one of the priorities of the President of the Republic", they say at the Elysee without however committing to a date to submit this reform to the vote of the French. 

No real #LoiClimat or respect for the commitments made before the Citizens' Convention or awareness of the emergency.



Happy #MarcheClimat to everyone, everywhere in France.

Another path is possible, in social justice, it goes through an alternation on the left.

pic.twitter.com/IE5u6ORbGu

- Boris VALLAUD (@BorisVallaud) May 9, 2021

The entourage of the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher (Les Républicains), told Reuters that the Elysee had not informed him of the abandonment of the project. 

The environmentalist deputy Matthieu Orphelin denounced for his part a "maneuver" of the government to shirk its responsibility. 

"I had been warning for months that the referendum would not take place, that the government was maneuvering so that the process did not go to the end, refusing all consultations with the Senate, however necessary to converge," he accuses in a statement sent to Reuters before the denial of the Élysée. 

"Manipulations" and "political strategies"

"This is a new commitment to ecology denied by Emmanuel Macron and LREM (...) I am revolted by these manipulations and these political strategies of the majority, on the back of the climate", adds this former elected official of the majority. 

Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, for his part, reproaches the senators for having adopted a text on Wednesday which empties the reform of its meaning by withdrawing "the verbs of action 'to guarantee', 'to fight', which the Council of State told us that ' they almost created a quasi-obligation of result ". 

"The majority in the National Assembly voted, word for word, the citizens' proposal. It is the senatorial right which deprives the country of an essential debate, by using this text as an electoral tool", he told the JDD. 

Have the opportunity to decide 

"We always want to offer the French the possibility of deciding (but) the commitment of the President of the Republic was not to do so on the basis of a text concealed by the senatorial right." 

Defending himself from any electoral calculation, Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade nonetheless targets other rivals of Emmanuel Macron for the presidential election of 2022, the environmentalists who "give us lessons (and) should look at their own balance sheet". 

"The five-year term of François Hollande, in which environmentalists participated, was that of climate inaction," accuses the LREM deputy.

"We have revived this ambition, with the climate law, the green pact at European level, the recovery plan, one third of which is devoted to ecological transition." 

Walks for the climate take place Sunday, May 9 in Paris, at the call of the collective "Never again", supported by the CGT and various climate defense organizations.

With Reuters

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