By Catherine Brown
The French elections last month were expected to register a new alliance between les Verts (Greens) and Génération Ecologie as the most significant green political force in Europe. Opinion polls predicted the electoral coalition would win up to 20% of the vote. In the event, the electorate gave the ecologists a disappointingly low 7.6% .
The coalition was prompted by results in the March 1992 regional elections, in which les Verts and GE won a combined vote of 14%. This and the lack of proportional representation, increased pressure for an alliance despite political differences between the two.
When the alliance, which took six months to finalise, was proposed last November, 70% of les Verts members supported it. Yves Cochet, one of their spokespeople, when asked just prior to the election, whether the alliance would lead to eventual unity, told Green Left Weekly:
"My opinion is it will depend on the result. If the result is no good, I think we won't be together in the future. If the result is good or very good the popular pressure on us will be to stay together."
Only two days after first round voting results, another les Verts spokesperson, Antoine Waechter, declared the end of the alliance, calling for separate campaigns in the 1994 European parliamentary elections. Waechter claimed the poor showing indicated that the alliance had not worked because each party had "different sensibilities".
Les Verts, the more radical of the two, was formed in 1984. Uniting many post-1968 rural ecologist groups and left activists, it is a grassroots-structured party. Its regional organisations have full autonomy and elect three-quarters of all delegates to its governing body, the CNIR. All debates on the CNIR are public. No accumulation of official positions is permitted, and the elected executive is recallable at any moment. Proportional representation is the rule at all levels.
By contrast, GE is thoroughly identified with Brice Lalonde, a former environment minister in the Socialist Party government and one-time head of Friends of the Earth. In the late 1980s Lalonde, after a trip to the Pacific nuclear test island of Moruroa, claimed he found no evidence of radioactive pollution and that the presence of the French was justified. His statement enraged
many green activists.
Dubbed by the press "Mr Ecology", Lalonde was appointed from outside parliament as minister of the environment; in his four years in that position, he was uncritical of the SP's poor record on environmental matters.
In 1990, with the approaching defeat of the SP evident, Lalonde abandoned the government to form GE. It is widely believed that the President Franois Mitterrand actively encouraged Lalonde's move, hoping GE would pick up disaffected SP voters in future elections and redirect their vote back to the SP.
GE first stood in the March 1992 regional elections and out-polled les Verts (6.8%) with 7.1%. This reflected both the different image projected by GE and Lalonde's personal popularity, helped by wide press coverage.
While Lalonde is widely criticised in and out of the broader green movement as an opportunist, GE did join committed activists. Lalonde seems to be independent of any decision-making structure in GE.
Cochet outlined the four main planks of the green alliance's common electoral platform: "Firstly, we are the champions of nature and environmental protection. I think people in France now see you can't defend the environment without the ecologists.
"Secondly, we propose a way to reduce the level of unemployment by what we call 'sharing the work and sharing the revenue'. So the first practical and concrete proposition is to lower the work week [currently 39 hours] to 35 or even 32." (Left activists have criticised this policy, saying that while it would mean more jobs, it would also lower living standards; they advocate a shorter work with no loss in pay).
"Thirdly, we want to build a democratic, social and green Europe. We think that Europe built on the Maastricht Treaty has a lack of democratic, social and environmental orientation." Les Verts' CNIR was evenly split on last year's referendum on Maastricht, while GE supported it.
"Fourthly, we are in favour of proportional representation." Despite les Verts having deputies in the European parliament, municipal councillors and 210 regional councillors, the national voting system still denies them representation in the National Assembly.
The platform was fairly broad, reflecting lack of agreement on more specific issues. One commentator explained, "The partners are on opposite sides on almost all key issues of local
ecological politics. They do not socialise, do not hold policy discussions and do not like each other's tactics."
In Strasbourg, a region with strong green support, GE was part of a council administration that directed the chopping down of 40 century-old chestnut trees to make room for a tram track; les Verts activists' attempts to save the trees were stopped by riot police with tear gas.
"The difference between les Verts and GE is the difference between theory and practice", claims Yveline Moeglen, a GE Strasbourg councillor. "We prefer a dialogue to persuade [factory] bosses to invest more money to get rid of the pollution and create more jobs."
After the first round of the elections, Constantin Svorovsky, les Verts' international relations assistant, talked to Green Left Weekly about why the green alliance had not attained the anticipated 15-20% vote.
"Confusion over what candidates represented the green alliance were increased by the number of candidates who called themselves environmental candidates", says Svorovsky.
A desperate SP projected some of its candidates as "environmental candidates". The right coalition also sponsored environmental candidates. Even the ultraright National Front campaigned on the environment, calling for polluters to be imprisoned. A number of ecological groups fielded candidates with similar symbols and names to les Verts and GE.
The response by Lalonde to former SP prime minister Michel Rocard's proposed "big bang" coalition did not help the green alliance. Rocard hoped to develop an alliance of anyone to the left of the main right parties as a base for his presidential bid in 1995.
The question highlighted the differences in the green alliance. Waechter opposed Rocard's proposal; Lalonde welcomed it, even inviting Rocard to participate in GE's election campaign.
Of those that voted for either les Verts or GE in March 1992 only about half did so 12 months later. Les Verts' vote this year was about 10% higher than GE's. Svorovsky suggests that perhaps the alliance's voters were less committed.
Last year GE's votes were high amongst ex-SP voters; some of that support has supposedly dropped because of criticisms by Lalonde of the SP. Also, les Verts are seen as more radical, which perhaps cost GE votes.
Many of GE's candidates joined the party only as an experiment, having left political parties from across the spectrum, hoping to be elected on a green tidal wave. In the eyes of voters, these candidates possibly lacked credibility.
"Lalonde more identified with the tradition of the centre rather than left ecologists", Alain Krivine, a leader of the Revolutionary Communist League, told Green Left. "Les Verts and GE were forced into this agreement not to appear divided.
"The result of the alliance was that les Verts were forced to drop from their program some radical demands they usually defended, such as anti-nuclear power and a vote for immigrants." GE advocates tighter control of nuclear waste rather than banning nuclear power.
During the campaign, especially the last weeks, Lalonde declared that perhaps he would participate in the new right government on some conditions. Increasingly the alliance was seen as more and more like politicians involved in typical political manoeuvres. The hesitation between right and the left discredited the alliance.
Over 30% of voters abstained. "Our vote is best", said Svorovsky, "when participation is highest". Such was the disillusionment with traditional parties that more than 1.5 million people went to the polling booths (it is not compulsory) to vote for no-one.