BOURGOGNE-FRANCHE-COMTÉ: Walkers and ecologists react to the creation of the parliamentary group Ecology Democracy Solidarity

Among the founders of the new parliamentary group Ecology Democracy Solidarity is the member for Côte-d’Or Yolaine de Courson. Benoît Bordat (Cap 21), Jacqueline Ferrari (UDE), Catherine Hervieu (EELV) and Sébastien Mirek (LREM) comment on this event in Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.

The creations of the parliamentary groups Ecology Democracy Solidarity, May 19, 2020, then Agir Ensemble, May 26, 2020, show that the lines are moving at the national level. In both cases, deputies elected in June 2017 under the label of La République En Marche have left the hitherto majority group of Walkers in the National Assembly.

In the case of Ecology Democracy Solidarity (EDS), a regional figure contributed to its foundation, the member for Côte-d’Or Yolaine de Courson (read our interview). In order to consider the effects of the creation of EDS, Dijon Info interviewed representatives of political ecology parties as well as the representative of La République En Marche in Côte-d’Or.

“At the local level, she was one of the deputies with whom we worked the best” reports Benoît Bordat, elected Cap 21 in Dijon

Benoît Bordat is regional delegate for Cap 21, the party chaired by Corinne Lepage. In 2017, Corinne Lepage supported Emmanuel Macron during the presidential election and then distanced herself from it. She is the lawyer for the City of Dijon in litigation which opposes it to the prefecture of the Côte-d’Or concerning the decree prohibiting the use of glyphosate. In the last legislative elections four former members of Cap 21 were elected under the LREM label.

On the side of Cap 21, we felt “cracks” among the deputies of my majority but Benoît Bordat discovered “with surprise that it was done with renowned environmentalists because there are Matthieu Orphelin and Delphine Batho”.

Another surprise, “pleasant” specifies Benoît Bordat, the presence of Yolaine de Courson. Within the framework of his elective functions in Dijon Métropole in the mandate which will soon end, Benoît Bordat worked with the deputy on the ecological transition contracts and the metropolitan project of sustainable food.

The “proposals” of Yolaine de Courson and his “listening” are welcomed by Benoît Bordat who appreciates the implication of the deputy “to make work at the same time the urban, the rural, therefore the high Côte-d’Or and the Metropolis together ”. “At the local level, she was one of the deputies with whom we worked best,” he notes. Relationships that the new group should not change.

“There is a lack of political pluralism”

Benoît Bordat says he is “quite curious to see what this group can do more and can change”. According to him, “after the pandemic period, there were three files that had to be taken care of since the start of the mandate. It is an ecological and social emergency, we are still waiting for action and a great ecological transition policy. The second is the question of decentralization, that is to say giving more power to local communities because we saw during the pandemic period that it was the local communities that were the most reactive and the most capable of responding to a number of population issues. Third subject, it is to reintroduce a dose of proportional to the legislative elections so that there is a better representativeness ”.

The regional delegate considers that, since the establishment of the quinquennium, there is a “lack of political pluralism”: “when you have a majority group with a unique form of thought and the impossibility of comments on government policy, it becomes problematic ”. Benoît Bordat therefore claims to be “a big supporter of political pluralism”.

Benoît Bordat underlines that “the origin of political ecology is the left”. “With Cap 21 and the UDE, there was this attempt to say ‘ecology must be large'” with a positioning in the center in order to “bring ecology to the center of all questions” indicates Benoît Bordat who adds “This is what the government is missing today”. Elected cap 21 says he is delighted that other actors are positioning themselves in the field of political ecology and “believe that this subject belongs to everyone”.

Regarding the figure of Delphine Batho, on the side of Cap 21, we see there “a person who has done interesting things as a minister”. Elected as a socialist, Delphine Batho was a minister of Ecology for one year during François Hollande’s five-year term before losing his Morocco paper for criticizing a 2014 budget lacking ambition for the ecological transition. In 2018, she left the PS to take the presidency of Generation Ecology, a movement founded in 1990 in particular by Brice Lalonde[Editor’snote:requestedby[NDLR :sollicitéeparDijon Info, the representative of Génération Écologie in Côte-d’Or, Karine Savina, was unable to answer].

Given that certain deputies remain members of LREM, Benoît Bordat supposes “a will of the President of the Republic to have this kind of orbit which would be located a little to the left and on the ecology to try to recapture attention on the majority presidential ”. The environmentalist remains puzzled about the government’s ability to “really put in place an ecological policy”: “I do not see anything that brings the world after, there are not many things in practices that have changed. “

News from Cap 21 concerns municipal elections. The party supports Anne Vignot in Besançon. Benoît Bordat, outgoing municipal councilor, appears with Anne-Laure Lassoued on the list led by François Rebsamen. Then Cap 21 says it wants to influence departmental and regional elections.

For the UDE, Jacqueline Ferrari applauds the positioning “on a theme rather than on a left-right divide”

After a period of abundant pluralism in the 1990s, the creation of the federation Europe Écologie Les Verts in 2010 tended to occupy the front of the scene of political ecology. A reaction came from the center with the creation of the Union of Democrats and Ecologists in 2015 by different personalities splitting up respectively with the Modem and with EELV. In 2017, the UDE supported Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election and then the Renaissance list in the 2019 European elections.

Jacqueline Ferrari represents UDE in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, accompanied by Yohann Pimentel, and sits on the party’s national office. At the regional council chaired by Marie-Guite Dufay, the elected Franc-Comtoise carries the delegation concerning water.

“I am going to look at what this can bring to the citizens” indicates Jacqueline Ferrari from the outset who adds that “their objective will be a field objective, this is what I expect from them”. The elected UDE appreciates that the parliamentary group is positioned “on a theme rather than on a left-right divide”.

The one who is both Burgundian and Franc-Comtoise has long tended to consider that “that ecology could be integrated into all groups except that each time we require a position more political than ecological”. Jacqueline Ferrari thus refutes the application of the left-right divide to ecology. “Politics must evolve” she launched hoping that the new parliamentary groups would contribute to this as long as “the work is done behind” which is not always the case “either because we are blocked by policies in place, either because there are enough of us, or because we don’t work enough ”.

“Ecology is for everyone”

The choice of the name is a good omen according to Jacqueline Ferrari: ecology, democracy and solidarity are “three words that emerged through confinement, some people will see their lives differently, if there are groups that are created as and measuring passing months is good. ” The elected representative is very interested in initiatives concerning “very very short circuits”.

Jacqueline Ferrari deplores the permanent criticism by insisting on the fact, that when a pandemic strikes the populations, “we criticize all the actions of the government, we do not know how to do otherwise, we criticize all the actions of the person who does not is not of your party “whereas” ecology, it concerns everyone, it does not concern only the Greens, it does not concern only the left, it does not concern only the right, the extreme right, we don’t talk about it ”. “If we want to change things with regard to nature, the best thing is already to respect each other” concludes the ecologist.

“Put ecological issues at large in the public debate” according to Catherine Hervieu, elected EELV in Dijon

President of the Federation of Green Elections and Ecologists, Catherine Hervieu is also an outgoing municipal councilor in Dijon. She is not surprised to see a group being formed, having among the personalities that compose it Matthieu Orphelin, close to Nicolas Hulot, “there is a form of logic”.

Besides, Catherine Hervieu traces the genesis of the group to the resignation of Nicolas Hulot. On August 28, 2018, the Minister of Ecology left the government, denouncing “lobbies in circles of power”. In February 2019, following the anti-breakers law, the deputy Matthieu Orphelin leaves LREM.

If we go back in history, Matthieu Orphelin was elected under the label Europe Ecology The Greens to the regional council of Pays de la Loire in 2010. In 2012, he left EELV and became spokesperson for the Foundation for Nature and the Man created by Nicolas Hulot. He supports Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 presidential election and contributes to the rapprochement of the future president of the Republic with Nicolas Hulot.

Elected EELV, Catherine Hervieu remembers “her ability to work and lead very relevant ecology projects” or “her ability to launch bridges to advance ecology in the broad sense from postulate that if we want to convince the whole of society, it is in our interest to maintain spaces for dialogue ”.

The president of the FEVE does not hold a grudge against the ecologist for having a time walked alongside the Walkers. She analyzes that he arrived “at LREM following the end of the bipolarisation of the parties” whereas, in 2017, there were “quite promising things at En Marche which very quickly shattered”.

If Matthieu Orphelin left LREM, “the Walkers who made up this group are still bound by principles of loyalty towards Emmanuel Macron” but “it comes to shuffle with the climatic emergency” while “it there is no time to lose ”. The creation of a group in the National Assembly therefore makes it possible to “put ecological issues in the broad sense in the public debate” with means that do not have isolated deputies (parliamentary niche, bill …).

Rather than the emergence of a potential presidential candidate as has been envisaged by the national media, Catherine Hervieu recalls the phrase of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, “the presidential, it drives you crazy”. Rather, it envisages that a preparation for the presidential election will make it possible “to weigh to designate a candidate and to take into account the whole of the ecological spectrum”.

Now, the president of the FEVE waits to see the deputies when pressing the vote button: “we can make speeches, who votes what, what is the implementation of these beautiful speeches”. On the act side, Catherine Hervieu recalls that “in France, we have not kept our commitments in relation to the commitments set out in the Paris agreement”.

Yolaine de Courson is deemed “capable of building gateways”

In the Côte-d’Or, Catherine Hervieu underlines that it is the departmental opposition councilor Sandrine Hily who is most in contact with Yolaine de Courson. Catherine Hervieu salutes the work of the deputy concerning “territorial food plans” and “her concern to switch agricultural production towards something geared towards preserving the environment in relation to the potential that we have in the department”. Yolaine de Courson’s approach is seen as “interesting and very open” and the deputy is considered “capable of building gateways”.

For the municipal elections in Dijon, Catherine Hervieu is on the list led by Stéphanie Modde bringing together members of the Independent Ecologist Alliance and Generation Ecology. The fact that Delphine Batho joined ESD is seen in terms of the political means brought in by a parliamentary group in order to “weigh in on the debates”. Catherine Hervieu supposes that Delphine Batho “undoubtedly wants to contribute to the presidential debates in her own way”.

Beyond Dijon, the president of the FEVE monitors the elections of Beaune – where EELV should have an elected representative – of Sens and Besançon. It watches for the possibility of a gathering of “all the ecological forces”, which will be “an issue for the next regional and national elections”.

“Yolaine de Courson said that she continued to support the President of the Republic” relates Sébastien Mirek, LREM referent in Côte-d’Or

“I was not warned, the confinement phase did not lend itself to it” says Sébastien Mirek, departmental referent of La République En Marche in the Côte-d’Or. However, Yolaine de Courson contacted him just before the formalization of the creation of the EDS group to announce his choice.

“It is a personal choice” insists Sébastien Mirek who adds “it is an approach to meet on the theme of ecological transition” not to place “behind Matthieu Orphelin”.

As she indicated in our interview, Yolaine de Courson organized a video conference with the Walkers of the department. The member explained her approach and her choices. “She said that she continued to support the President of the Republic and to be at LREM” relates the referent.

“It is a parliamentary group, the time is not for division, it is rather a time for reconstruction” he analyzes. The important thing for LREM is therefore that it is not a party. The possibility of having a “double membership” offers a certain tolerance in this kind of situation even if one feels that the pill is bitter for some Walkers of Côte-d’Or.

“The time is reunited and post-crisis reconstruction”

The referent reports that “Stanislas Guérini [NDLR: délégué général LREM] is not in a desire to exclude apart when we cross a red line “and that” the thematic ecological transition has been there from the start, it is also in post-crisis, it is glaring “.

Sébastien Mirek notes significantly different perspectives depending on whether the Walkers are in rural or urban areas. By forcing the line a little, one could say that, overall, the rural walkers are very concerned about the ecological transition while the urban walkers are very attentive to health and social issues. The referent explains the difference in analysis by the fact that “the clusters [de l’épidémie de Covid-19] were very urban, where there was a density of population, where the economy will be more impacted and where there are more social inequalities ”.

The referent welcomes the desire of the deputy to continue “to work on Rural Action and on the fact of not being ashamed to live in the rural”. The movement will continue its reflection on the “ecological transition as“ transversal and transpartisan ”and Sébastien Mirek invites to“ work together on it ”because“ it concerns all citizens ”and that“ the time is reunited and post-crisis reconstruction “

The current events of the movement in the department is not so much on the side of municipal elections as in a work on themes of health, social action and perimeter of public power in order to develop “proposals submitted to public debate end of June”.

Jean-Christophe Tardivon
(archive footage)

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