Is three years the length of time needed for a radical idea to seem reasonable? The experience of Green mayors elected in 2020 helps answer this question. To recap, a “green wave” swept over some 15 cities in the last local elections, including Lyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Poitiers, Besançon, Tours, Annecy and Colombes, despite low turnout (59 per cent of voters stayed at home in the second round).

Although just 3 per cent of France’s population now live in a Green-run city, these elections saw the party enjoy “one of its most defining moments”, political scientist Vanessa Jérome stresses in her book Militer chez les Verts (Being a Green Activist). The party replaced its socialist big brother in several cities, while in others it ended decades of right-wing government, with Bordeaux being the biggest breakthrough. Hence the kneejerk anti-Green reaction from influential journalists close to the traditional parties.

The expression “Khmaires verts” (a wordplay on “maires” (mayors) and “Khmers rouges”) fast became fashionable, having first been coined by Gérard Collomb, the defeated mayor of Lyon. A month after the vote, current affairs magazine Le Point ran the headline “Environmentalism’s clowns”, Le Monde mocked the “esoteric theories” of Green mayors, and in the pages of Le Parisien, renowned writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy denounced elected officials possessed by the “anti-humanist demon”.

Criticism of the positions of the new mayors intensified. Some of them were holding public office for the first time and had a background in social activism, which meant they lacked the networks and intellectual backing to rebut attacks).

The Green wave’s baptism of fire

Newly elected Mayor of Lyon Grégory Doucet, who previously worked in the aid sector, was the first to put his foot in it, declaring that the Tour de France was “macho and polluting”. Then his counterpart in Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, refused to put up a Christmas tree – or, in his own words, a “dead tree” – in one of the city’s squares.

In Poitiers, 30-year-old Léonore Moncond’huy justified her “difficult decision” to stop subsidising the city’s flying clubs to “protect children’s futures”. “It’s sad to say, but children today should not be dreaming of flying,” she said.

These positions provoked a major media backlash. “The controversies that followed the Greens taking power amounted to what Stanley Cohen called a moral panic. This is when anecdotes from still minority practice or discourse are amplified by the press and mass media to make it easier to delegitimise them – and thereby preserve the status quo,” explains Simon Persico, a political science professor who co-directs the project “Promesses et bilans des municipalités écologistes” (Promises and track records of Green municipalities), in partnership with France’s Foundation for Political Ecology and Germany’s Heinrich Böll Foundation. “It’s evident at the national level that the political class is falling short,”, adds the Green MP for the Rhône, Marie-Charlotte Garin, a close ally of Doucet. “Saying that the Tour de France is macho and polluting should not cause such outcry. But there is clearly a target on our backs to take back our cities: discrediting us nationally also discredits us locally,” she believes.

For the Green president of the greater Lyon region, Bruno Bernard, this uproar can be explained by the fact that, quite often “Greens have more distinct priorities to other alternatives on the traditional right or left: for civil society, including media and business organisations, this marks a significant change.”

At the midpoint in their terms, accusations of amateurism and dogmatism aimed at Green mayors seem to have subsided. They have stopped making communications blunders and their messaging is now more disciplined. The pioneering experiment in Grenoble, where Éric Piolle has run the city since 2014, has also made a difference: senior local officials were sent to newly won cities to share their skills. “High-ranking political and administrative staff have been scattered everywhere”, explains Persico.

Then, after scorching summers punctuated by megafires, with golf courses enjoying exemptions from water rationing, public opinion began to see where the absurdity really lay. That is what the mayor of Poitiers, Léonore Moncond’huy, would like to believe.

“Greens are creating wedge issues in public debate”. Positions that were once met with outrage may seem less shocking three years later.

After admitting her “blunder” when speaking about aviation, she engaged in a debate that she says has been productive: “I’ve tried to do some judo with this controversy. I’ve spoken to the aviation industry because it’s important to explain our plan for transition. I think that this has changed minds.”

“Greens are creating wedge issues in public debate,” adds Persico. Positions that were once met with outrage may seem less shocking three years later. At the time, these reactions were a way of attacking the newcomer. Today, awareness of the tangible consequences of global heating is somewhat greater and more widely shared, and energy saving is no longer a dirty word in public policy, though it still means different things to different people.”

Everyday environmentalism

Moncond’huy also reckons that Green mayors, leading inclusive and grassroots majorities (50 per cent of her electoral list comprised non-party members), have proven themselves in power: “There was a presumption that we would be incompetent and amateurish, but three years later, we’ve established ourselves. We’ve shown that we can stay the course, that we’re more interested in action than soundbites.”

Simon Persico confirms that, when it comes to their “core business”, promises made by Green councils have been kept: “On transport, school canteens, policies promoting greening and sustainable drainage, active travel, they are making rapid progress in most cities by investing and transforming their urban space. Many of their promises in these areas have been kept or are about to be.”

In the Lyon metropolitan area, a special case where powers are extensive and urban centres (Lyon, Vénissieux, Vaulx-en-Velin) are aligned politically, progress has been significant: to combat heatwaves, 25,000 trees and shrubs were planted in the winter of 2022-2023, with the goal of achieving 30 per cent tree coverage by 2026; advertising in public spaces has been drastically reduced (gone are digital billboards, advertisements on building site hoardings and illuminated shop windows at night); 1,300 compost bins will be installed outside apartment buildings by the end of 2023, with the contents used to fertilise farmland; alternatives to car travel have been boosted, with a doubling of the public transport budget this term – extensions to metro line B and the tram network 2026 are due for completion in 2026…

There is much at stake for the Greens: while Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV, the French green party) was seen the rising force in politics after the 2019 European elections and the 2020 local elections, their under-performance in the 2022 presidential election (receiving a disappointing 4.7 per cent of votes) took the wind out of their sails. Green mayors and MPs are now the assets on which the party hopes to build electoral strongholds and cement a more central role in the still-fragile alliance with the Left.

Changing attitudes towards the environment is not all plain sailing, with consumerism and productivism deeply rooted in society. Despite this, the Greens have no intention of resting after their first local wins.

Marine Tondelier, elected as EELV’s national secretary in December 2022, confirmed as much at the close of the party’s conference: “Today there are Green elected officials across our country; it’s a source of great pride. […] That’s right, Greens in power change lives! […] We have twice as many office holders as we did three years ago. Our main goal is to show what the Green movement can mean for an area, because that’s how we can bring people on board with actual effective change,” says Moncond’huy.

Grégory Doucet echoed this message when speaking to Mediapart in 2020: “It is cities that are driving the green transition, that can lead by example, because they can be part of people’s everyday lives.” Persico points out that cities are mostly run by coalitions and so “at local level, the green transition is not the preserve of Green politicians, even though they help to develop and promote good practice in this area.”

Building more Green strongholds

In the eyes of Bernard, president of the powerful Lyon metropolitan area and an expert on EELV’s electoral geography, support has held firm so far – although in certain cities, like Annecy and Bordeaux, the party’s majority is fragile. “Since 2020, there have been elections, parliamentary especially, that have confirmed our gains. When you look at the results, there were no collapses, nor any sign of cracks,” he notes.

While wary of triumphalism, he also points out that two issues are growing salient in society, legitimise green transition policies. First, there is energy saving. “When we were talking about it two years ago, the president was still mocking people who wanted to “go back to candles”. In the Lyon metropolitan area, we cut electricity consumption by 10 per cent last winter through education alone,” he boasts.

Then there is the issue of water, where “there is now greater awareness among the general public.” For the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Lyon metropolitan area, water management was taken into public hands on 1 January 2023 to protect this precious resource. “Today, it’s much easier to explain what we’re doing,” says Bernard.

Other Green cities are, however, more isolated than Lyon, and must deal with “major inter-institutional tensions which mean that projects don’t progress as quickly as planned,” Persico says. “We’d like to go further and faster, but politics is about permanent compromise between institutions,” agrees Moncond’huy, who is frustrated that she is held back both by the region and by differences in position with central government.

It is on the question of transport – and, therefore, reducing space for cars – that Greens still face the most stubborn resistance. Bernard says that low-emissions zones (LEZs) “enjoy more support within the Lyon metropolitan area than outside it,” which mirrors EELV’s still predominantly urban electoral base.

More broadly, changing attitudes towards the environment is not all plain sailing, with consumerism and productivism deeply rooted in society. “People are ambivalent, as we all are. They are aware that climate change is irreversible, and that it will radically alter our everyday lives but, at the same time, they are unwilling to give up certain behaviours,” concludes Alain Coulombel, a member of EELV’s executive office.

Despite this, the Greens have no intention of resting after their first local wins. They are already planning for the 2026 local elections with their sights set on major cities held by the right, including Toulouse and Saint-Étienne whose current mayor Gaël Perdriau is embroiled in scandal.

This article was originally published by Mediapart.