French Greens’ top candidate not for ‘giving up hope’ in EU elections race

4 months ago 22

With the European elections just a month away and the Greens struggling to take off in the polls, Marie Toussaint, head of the Green party list, called on Tuesday (30 April) in Paris for “a great leap forward” in the face of the “dangers” threatening Europe.

Read the original story in French here.

“We’re not giving up hope, because we know that what’s at stake on June 9 is absolutely vital. Vital for the future of Europe, vital for the future of our democracies, vital for the future of humanity”, Marie Toussaint told the press at the party’s headquarters in Paris.

The aim is to keep morale high, while the Greens are moving further and further away from the good results they achieved in the last European elections in 2019, when they were led by Yannick Jadot.

Across Europe, the Greens are also expected to lose seats. The latest projection has them falling from 72 to 48 seats, with only 7.7% of the popular vote.

In France in 2019, the Greens came third with 13.47% of votes, behind only president Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance (Renew) (22.41%) and the far right Rassemblement national (RN, ID) (23.31%).

The party is now sixth, level with La France insoumise (LFI, The Left), and behind the Républicains (EPP) (7%) and Reconquête (ECR) (8%), according to the latest OpinionWay-Vae Solis barometer for the newspaper Les Echos published on Monday (29 April).

RN is still leading the polls with 29% of the vote share. Renaissance stands at 18%.

However, in 2024, the Greens also face an unexpected obstacle. The PS-Place publique (S&D) led by Raphaël Glucksmann is taking off in the polls, reaching 14%, whereas in 2019 the list – already led by the Socialist candidate – struggled to reach 6%.

“We were always told it would be hard”

At the Green Party headquarters, Marie Toussaint, along with candidates David Cormand, Mounir Satouri, Flora Ghebali and Abdoulaye Diarra, tried to explain the lack of interest in their list.

“People have always told us [the Ecologists] that it would be hard, and that’s normal, we’re bringing about the most profound change possible in society”, asserts the leader, whose programme is based on tackling two urgent issues: climate change and social crisis.

Faced with the “dangers” threatening Europe – war in Ukraine, climate crisis, poverty, disinformation – Toussaint is calling for a “great leap forward” and to “see through” the “robustness” of the other parties’ proposals.

“We want more solidarity and to put health and our lives above profits. This change is more difficult than solutions that say it’s someone else’s fault and that we’ll get through by closing our borders.”

Despite the tepid result in the polls , the candidate has no intention of giving up.

“We want to put forward our proposals for the next five weeks to fight against the far right, the nationalist populists, those who want to attack us from the outside. To respond to the social crisis affecting our populations.”

Toussaint regrets the late start to the campaign, with the first debate between the lead candidates to head the European Commission taking place “only yesterday”. Unfortunately, “the public is just beginning to take an interest in the issues at stake on June 9”, she points out.

As for Raphaël Glucksmann’s name, it will not be mentioned by Marie Toussaint, who nonetheless regrets that media coverage is sometimes too “monothematic” and tends to make the ecologist list invisible.

“It’s up to you to ensure that we can get to the bottom of the proposals, that we can decipher the differences between rhetoric and action”, she concluded, addressing the journalists.