Christophe Béchu, the new Minister for Ecological transition in the new French government unveiled on Monday (4 July), is being heavily criticised for his lack of expertise on the matter and his socially conservative views.
French Prime minister Elisabeth Borne unveiled her new government in a long-awaited move after several ministers had lost their electoral fight in the legislative elections and needed replacement.
Amélie de Montchalin, a close Macron ally and Minister for Ecological Transition, was one of those to lose her post.
De Montchalin was replaced by Christophe Béchu, from the majority coalition Ensemble! and a close advisor to former Prime Minister and Macron supporter Edouard Philippe.
While De Montchalin underscored Béchu’s “concrete action for everyday ecology” as the former mayor of Angers (Maine-et-Loire), green MP Sandrine Rousseau insisted she had “never seen Béchu take part in any ecological fight”.
Jean-François Julliard, director-general of Greenpeace France, explained in a press release that the new minister lacks “experience on the issues of ecological transition”.
He has “hardly ever taken a position on national or international climate or environmental issues”, added Julliard.
Extreme-left La France Insoumise local Angers Councillor Claire Schweitzer, a municipal councillor of La France Insoumise (LFI), further argued in a Twitter tit-for-tat that “his passion is concrete and land artificialisation”.
A right-wing senator from 2011 to 2017, Béchu, however, voted against a ban on neonicotinoids and, in another vote, in favour of extending the life of nuclear reactors.
“Ecology is not of the right or the left”
The new minister defended his credentials from the outset. While he readily acknowledged that he was not an environmental “theorist”, he noted that “in [his] urban community, ecology is not a right or left-wing issue”.
“If a few are holding up all the others, we know the impact collectively”, he said and defended “a concrete ecological policy adapted to the territories”.
His nomination comes as the French High Council on climate published a report last Thursday (June 30) pointing out the absence of “strategic and temporal coherence between the action of the State and that of the territorial levels, nor of coordination of planning between different regions”.
[Edited by Alice Taylor]
Source: euractiv.com
