Verts—La Conformite´? The Development of French Green Politics—A Comparative Perspective

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Notes

Correspondence Address: Joanna Drugan, Department of French, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. Email: [email protected]

Belgium has two green parties, Agalev for the Flemish regions and Ecolo for the francophone regions.

Other aspects could, of course, also be examined in this context. Space constraints have led to a focus on party development alone here, but the debate on exceptionalism could also be addressed through a consideration of green ideology, policy, public profile, success in different electoral contests, and so on. Some of this ground has recently been explored in works such as Burchell (2002).

See www.europeangreens.org for details of this agreement. One further indication of the parties' common ground is the ease and speed with which a common manifesto could be drawn up and accepted by all the European green parties involved in the coalition. Even if divergence in green parties' national policies on such issues as animal rights or hunting are frequently stressed in exceptionalist critiques, these apparently posed no problems for inter‐party agreement at the policy level.

Bennahmias & Roche (1992: 118–121).

See, for example, the analyses published by Rudolf Bahro (1986) or Alain Lipietz (1993).

And in Belgium, for that matter – cf. Kitschelt (1989: 32).

France also has more than one ‘green’ party, of course. Ge´ne´ration Ecologie, founded by Lalonde in 1990 and the Mouvement Ecologiste Inde´pendant, founded by Waechter after he left Les Verts are also present in some constituencies at most elections.

Among the many detailed studies of green activists and voters, those by Delwit, Zirakzadeh, Bennahmias & Roche, and Schull give useful analyses.

For reasons of space, this section does not address specific policy stances on particular issues for each party; rather, it considers the broadly similar evolution in formulating policy. Issues such as institutional structures and patterns of party institutionalisation, party systems, party structures/organisation and so on are clearly also important here. Those interested in such factors will find Prendiville's (1995) groundbreaking and comprehensive survey of Les Verts' policy emphasis useful in the case of France. More recently Jon Burchell's broader European study (2002, see especially Chapters 2, 3 & 6) addresses such questions at greater length and from a comparative perspective.

My thanks go to the anonymous reviewer who suggested this point here.

Thus French greens comment that ‘il est impossible de parler de l'e´cologie au singulier’ (Ferry, 1992:.54); instead, they often refer to ‘e´cologismes’.

Die Gru¨nen remain members of the German national government and legislative majority, following their score of 8.6% in the 2002 national election, while Les Verts suffered in the general backlash against the French left in their national 2002 elections, gaining 4.5% of the vote and maintaining seats in the National Assembly but leaving government. In the case of Belgium, a national reaction against recent corruption, justice and paedophile scandals affected the parties of government (see www.europeangreens.org/peopleandparties/members/ecolo for a discussion here), and resulted in Ecolo's Brussels regional party group rejecting continued collaboration with the left in power, though all of the party's other regional groups have maintained their coalition. What should be stressed here, then, is that even in these differing circumstances, the parties are not rejecting ongoing or future cooperation with other parties of the left, even if faced with an electoral downturn.

As Lees points out, the principle of Ministerial autonomy is safeguarded by the Basic Law of the Federal Republic, in a clear distinction from the typical French Minister's reliance on Prime Ministerial and/or Presidential support (Ibid., pp.21–2).

The French uninominal two‐ballot majority voting system, in place for legislative and presidential elections since 1958 and 1962, respectively, makes it very difficult for smaller or new parties to win seats at national level.

See Parkin (1989, various pages listed by party) for further details and comparative tables of all European green parties' first electoral successes.

With 8.6% of the vote in the 2002 legislative elections, Die Gru¨nen obtained 55 seats in the national assembly, while for Ecolo, 7.3% of the 1999 legislative vote translated into only 11 seats. By way of comparison, Les Verts' 1997 legislative score of 6.8% resulted in 7 seats.

Although, of course, the introduction of these elections sometimes predated the founding of the new green parties, and it must be acknowledged that European elections are themselves exceptional, to some extent, often being a vehicle for protest votes.

See www.europeangreens.org/info/archive/results.archive for details of green results in European elections since 1979.

‘Les e´cologistes ne portent aucune responsabilite´ dans les politiques mene´es au cours des dernie`res anne´es. Leur cre´dibilite´ est de ce fait intacte quand ils de´noncent la politique [des autres partis]’ (Voynet in Le Monde, 26/6/93)

Although all four parties were working in coalitions with the left, there were of course national differences in the make‐up of each set of coalition partners, with Les Verts in government alongside the Parti Communiste Franc¸ais, for example.

The first was the agreement that Super‐Phe´nix be decommissioned.

See www.europeangreens.org/peopleandparties/members/ecolo for details.