On Wednesday, August 30, at the Maison d'Education de la Légion d'Honneur (a French school opened by Napoleon) in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, Emmanuel Macron greeted the leaders of the political parties currently represented in Parliament. They had been invited to reflect with the French president on the government's priorities for the next five years. Suddenly, he moved toward the only female leader among his guests, Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of France's Green party: "I did hear your remark. The environment is everywhere. We can talk about it," Macron said. A few days earlier, she had expressed her frustration to the president's office, arguing climate was not on the agenda of the three planned round tables.
During the 12 hours of discussions that followed, Macron barely mentioned it. When he did, it was mostly in response to questions from left-leaning politicians. Amid multiple debates on institutions and immigration, he proposed creating working groups on proportional representation in Parliament and hinted at a future conference on social issues.
However, Macron did not launch any collective initiative on climate. Yet this is a crucial issue on which the Elysée has been repeating for months that politicians and the French people should be fully engaged. At the end of the meeting, around 3 am, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne walked up to Tondelier with a few words to try to make up for the lack of an initiative: "You know, we're implementing environmental planning. We're going to get there."
Ongoing vagueness
Whether Macron wants to see substantial climate-related projects bear fruit remains unclear. "Elisabeth Borne has appeared twice before the National Council for Ecological Transition [CNTE, which brings together elected officials representatives, associations and government representatives]. Let's say that Emmanuel Macron hasn't had much opportunity to express himself on the subject," said Anne Bringault, a program coordinator with the Climate Action Network.
Since his return from Fort de Brégançon, the French president's vacation home in the south of France, Macron's agenda has been mainly focused on education. In a wide-ranging interview with the weekly Le Point on August 23, Macron reiterated his mantra of "a demanding environmental policy based on progress, projects, common sense, and solutions within the framework of planning based on scientific analysis." But he made no specific announcements. The Elysée has promised many climate-related visits in the second half of this month but has yet to confirm the date of a next Environmental Planning Council (CPE) scheduled for mid-September.
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