Poitiers (AFP)

The "Summer Days" of the ecologists, from Thursday to Saturday in Poitiers, constitute a highlight before the primary of the Greens in September during which the five candidates will try to convince their political family that they embody the best chance of winning the Elysée in 2022.

The leaders of EELV, central training of the environmentalist pole, can assure that the "JDE" have vocation to gather in a friendly atmosphere.

Above all, the staffs of the five candidates make it one of the key stages in view of the highly competitive appointment to come.

As proof, the offensives at the beginning of the week of the two favorites, the mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle and the MEP Yannick Jadot.

Defeating the often advanced idea that the candidates differ only in form, the former insisted on the substance by publishing Monday his "plan for France".

Eric Piolle promises thirty measures such as a "climate ISF", the creation of 1.5 million green jobs or three billion euros of additional investment in rail.

As for Yannick Jadot, head of the EELV list for the Europeans in 2019, he published in Le Parisien, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, a platform of his supporters, claiming 1,100 signatures including 330 elected.

Among them, six senators, a third of EELV MEPs, mayors or the former head of the regional list Claire Desmares-Poirrier, Nicolas Thierry and Jean-Laurent Félizia.

Four candidates for the primary of the ecological part EELV: Yannick Jadot, Sandrine Rousseau, Delphine Batho and Eric Piolle, July 12, 2021 in Paris GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT AFP

"Yannick Jadot embodies ecology in the eyes of many French people: he has an important reputation. It is a fundamental achievement for the presidential election, to be heard beyond the traditional ecological electorate", they write.

A way for the Jadot camp to pump up the muscles in front of the 350 activists, elected officials or personalities who supported Eric Piolle in a July forum.

- "Small seeds" -

The two men also gathered their troops physically on Wednesday.

Yannick Jadot opted for a trip to the Poitevin marshes, which journalists were invited to travel with in the company of a group of around thirty elected officials looking like a summer camp.

The MEP was slightly annoyed with a question on the summer break taken over the past 15 days, saying that it was necessary to "know how to rest", while his rival Eric Piolle took his family on the roads of his internal campaign all summer.

The mayor of Grenoble seemed to answer him in a speech delivered in Poitiers in front of more than a hundred supporters: "This Tour de France did not tire me at all, on the contrary!"

MEP Yannick Jadot, July 12, 2021 in Paris GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT AFP

Eric Piolle's all-round travel will be an advantage, assures AFP Alain Couloumbel, one of his supporters and member of the executive board of EELV, representative of the left wing: "These are all small seeds that make Eric in a more collective and upward dynamic. "

"The Piolle dynamic is fantasy," replied MEP Benoît Biteau, perched on a boat in the Poitevin marsh.

Yannick Jadot's supporters count on his notoriety, which is more important according to studies.

But the two men have to deal with three outsiders: the deputy Delphine Batho, the former number 2 of the party Sandrine Rousseau and the former entrepreneur Jean-Marc Governatori.

Ms. Rousseau is expected to attract many feminist votes.

The green pole, however, chose not to bring the five candidates to grapple with each other in a debate at the "JDE".

Instead, everyone will have a "carte blanche" sequence, alone on stage, to express their difference.

EELV chief Julien Bayou, who will not speak publicly for any of them, is due to give a speech Thursday at 11:00 a.m., in which he should call for amplifying the positive dynamic of the interim elections.

And above all, to register to vote in the primary.

For the time being, only 17,000 voters are registered while the authorities are counting on several tens of thousands to legitimize the winner against the many other potential candidates on the left, from the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo to the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon , already launched, via Arnaud Montebourg, who has also just announced his candidacy for the Elysee.

© 2021 AFP