(or The Greens) are an
Ecologist Political Party to the
Left of the
Political Spectrum in
France . They have officially been in existence since
1982 , but their spiritual roots can be traced as far back as
René Dumont ’s
Candidacy For The Presidency In 1974 . They are a member of the
European Green party.
Since 1974, the environmentalist movement has been a permanent feature of the French political scene, contesting every election: municipal, national and European.
In the years following Dumont’s challenge for the presidency, and prior to the formal confirmation of les Verts as political party, environmentalists contested elections under such banners as ''Ecology 78'', ''Ecology Europe'' and ''Ecology Today''. When, in 1982, ''the Ecologist Party'' merged with ''the Ecologist Confederation'', les Verts were born. Under the ideological guidance of
Antoine Waechter , the party in 1986 signalled a break with the traditional divide in French politics, declaring that environmental politics could not be “married” to either the left or the right (which gave rise to its famous slogan “ni droite, ni gauche” - "neither right, nor left"). Antoine Waechter ran in the
1988 Presidential Elections , capturing 1,150,000 ballots (or 3.8%) in the first round of voting. But the major breakthrough came the following year when - again under the leadership of Waechter - the Greens polled 10.6% in the European parliamentary elections.
Waechter's influence was called into question in 1994 when the Greens decided to break with his policy of non-alignment, instead deciding to adopt a markedly left-wing stance. The move prompted Waechter to leave the Greens. He went on to found the Movement of Independent Ecologists. In the following presidential election of 1995,
Dominique Voynet polled a modest 3.8%.
Dominique Voynet was to lead the party into government for the first time, joining
Lionel Jospin ’s
Socialist Party (PS) and the
Communist Party (PCF). Voynet was rewarded with the cabinet position of Minister for the Environment and Regional Planning, before being replaced by
Yves Cochet in 2001.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit (or “Danny the Red”), a leader of the
1968 Student Uprising , spearheaded the party’s
1999 European Campaign , obtaining 9.7% of votes cast, enough to return seven deputies to
Strasbourg .
.
Following the return to opposition benches in 2002,
Gilles Lemaire assumed the position of national secretary. His tenure is marked by a period of internal strife in the party. Lemaire was in turn replaced by
Yann Wehrling , the present leader, who has seemingly united a majority of the membership under a text outlining the future direction that the party hopes to pursue.
Les Verts had six
MEP s elected in the 2004 European Election with 8.43% of the vote.
In the hugely divisive 2005 referendum on the
European Constitution , les Verts campaigned for a YES vote.
In the
French Presidential Election, 2007 , les Verts nominated
Dominique Voynet . Her low score of 1.57% in the first round was the party's worst electoral result, and the French ecologist's worst showing since
René Dumont in the
1974 . The party refused an electoral deal with the
Socialists for the
June Legislative Election . However, the three Green incumbents,
Noël Mamère ,
Yves Cochet , and
Martine Billard had no PS opposition in their respective constituencies. While the Green's vote share was down from 2002, it won a fourth seat in
Nantes where
François De Rugy defeated a UMP incumbent. The Greens now have four seats in the Assembly and sit with the
PCF in the
Gauche Démocrate Et Républicaine group.
The youth branch of les Verts, founded in Strasbourg in 2001, is widely known as la Souris verte (literally “the green mouse”).
One of the party's co-founders,
Ginette Skandrani , had long attracted criticism due to her involvement with
Holocaust Deniers . Auffray, Alain,
''Une verte trop brune exclue du parti'' , ''Libération'', 02 June 2006 -- hosted on
http://www.pdpinfo.org/
The Stephen Roth Institute criticized the Green Party in 2004, calling its record "tainted by abortive attempts to expel from within its ranks notorious anti-Jewish activist Ginette Skandrani herself ethnically Jewish Audio file recorded by Skandrani, hosted on
www.proche-orient.info who has close contacts with Holocaust deniers.".Anonymous,
"Country Reports, France- 2004" , ''Steven Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism.'' 2004.
Other critics, such as
Roger Cukierman of the
CRIF (council of French Jewish organisations) did not attack the party as a whole, but rather its anti-zionist wing, claiming that it promoted a "
Brown -green alliance".
In June, 2005, the Greens voted to permanently expel Skandrani. Among the reasons for her definitlve expulsion were her participation in the holocaust-denial website ''
AAARGH '' (Association des anciens amateurs de récits de guerres et d’holocaustes). Patrick Farbiaz, a Green leader involved in her explusion, argued that "although she has not written
texts herself, she looks like a kingpen of holocaust deniers and avowed antisemites".
The party had previously expelled another co-founder (in 1991),
Jean Brière , for signing a text addressing the alleged "war-causing role" of Israel and "the
Zionist lobby in the
Gulf War .
