The leader of Les Écologistes: "If the far right wins in France, Europe will tilt—and we will enter a different world"

Marine Tondelier is one of the architects of the French New Popular Front, which in 2024 was the leading force in the legislative elections. Despite the success of this united front, which brought together figures ranging from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left to Olivier Faure’s centre-left Socialists, the formula appears to have run its course. The reason? La France Insoumise and the Socialists do not seem willing to repeat it. She regrets this: "I find it a very selfish attitude, even indecent", she says.

She is the national secretary of Les Écologistes and has spent more than ten years in local opposition in Hénin-Beaumont, a small town in northern France known, among other things, as Marine Le Pen’s bastion. She therefore knows very well what the French radical right proposes.

Every European capital has the 2027 French presidential election marked on its calendar, and the leader of the ecologists is already warning: "And if France falls, Europe falls". Faced with the possibility of the National Rally (RN) coming to power, she stresses her rejection of both the Socialists and La France Insoumise ruling out a common front, while also warning of the risks for Europe and for France: "If Europe shifts because France has shifted, then we really enter another world".

As for her project and the ecologist vision in an increasingly turbulent world, she argues that "Our industrial, energy, cultural and digital vulnerabilities are being weaponised by our enemies, especially by Trump and Putin". On demography and the sustainability of the welfare state, Tondelier, who is expecting her second child, believes that "The fall in birth rates is also a kind of silent strike of the wombs of women who are not doing well and who do not see themselves in that life".
 
It is being discussed in every European capital that France is setting the political calendar with the 2027 presidential election. If an RN candidate reached the Élysée, what would change for France and for Europe?

I have been an opposition councillor in Hénin-Beaumont since 2014, a city governed by the National Rally. That is why I have seen first-hand the changes the far right brings when it comes to power. What is clear is that, in a world where major democracies —including the United States, with its long democratic history— are shifting to the reactionary side, we can see a kind of domino effect beginning: states fall one after another and drag each other down with them. The next domino could be France.

"In a world where major democracies —including the United States, with its long democratic history— are shifting to the reactionary side, we can see a kind of domino effect beginning"

And if France falls, Europe falls. Today, there are not many progressive countries left in Europe, and even fewer left-wing countries. Europe is what remains to stand up to imperialisms. The only entity with the critical mass to confront them is Europe. If Europe shifts because France has shifted, then we really enter another world. That is why, as an ecologist and with the French presidential election in mind, I will do everything in my power, not only for the ecologists, but for my whole political camp, to avoid that scenario.

Looking ahead to that presidential election, how do you think the French left should present itself? And beyond tactical considerations, how would you like it to present itself?

From the beginning, what we ecologists have defended is that we need a common candidacy between the left and the ecologists. Our position has been constant and coherent: we have defended it, we have put it forward and we are doing everything we can to build it. But it is not simple at all.

"Mélenchon and the Socialists agree on not wanting to work together again, and that destroys any ambition of victory for the left"

Today we are in a situation in which we understand that Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not want to work with the others and is going his own way, while there is a temptation among many Socialists to go the other way. In the end, both sides agree on not wanting to work together again, and that destroys any ambition of victory for the left, now and in the future. I find it a very selfish attitude, even indecent, because it means we will not be up to the task for the people we are supposed to defend: some vote for us, others do not, and others do not vote at all.

We ecologists look at what is happening with fear, but we do not change our mind: we will continue to defend a common candidacy with determination.
 
The New Popular Front was seen as a success in 2024. If the challenge is now even greater, why does it seem more difficult to repeat that unity?

That is exactly what I spend my time saying. Is the danger of the National Rally coming to power smaller today than it was yesterday? No. Nothing proves that. That is why I spoke earlier about indecency and the irresponsible nature of this strategy.

It is true that since 2024 this idea of an irreconcilable left has taken hold in France. Some Socialists feed it, and so does Jean-Luc Mélenchon. It is like mining a battlefield: once you have planted mines everywhere, even if there is reconciliation later, the mines remain. There is something irreversible in what is happening, and that worries me a lot.

One of the most recognisable contributions of the Greens in France has been in cities: mobility, urban calming, renaturation, housing and proximity. What is your model of the city today, and what have you learned from the experience of governing major municipalities such as Lyon? Do you think Spain has something to learn in this area?

I do not have a complete view of Spain, but today we are in Madrid, a large city like Lyon, and there are common problems. The first issue, even stronger here than in Lyon, is housing: tensions with Airbnb, tourism, or very wealthy people who want to have an apartment in every European capital while people who simply want a home cannot find a place to live decently. These are problems we share.

What I am extremely proud of in French cities governed by ecologists is their determination to change life, to change the city and therefore to really change people’s lives. These are very concrete improvements: kilometres of cycle lanes, organic and local food in canteens, the right to holidays for everyone, cool islands during heatwaves. It is a clear improvement in quality of life.

I also think that in Spain the phenomenon of urban concentration is stronger. Coming by train from Barcelona, we saw fields, very small villages and little density outside the big cities. In France we have more intermediate cities.

"It is good that Spanish cities draw inspiration from French ecologist cities, but French ecologists also draw inspiration from what is being done in Spanish cities"

And France can also draw inspiration from Spain. In my presidential project I am working on loneliness, because it affects one in four French people. It is incredible. The World Health Organization says that feeling lonely has the same effect on health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It is a social, societal and public health problem. That is why I have decided to address it by drawing inspiration from the United Kingdom or Japan, where there are ministers responsible for loneliness.

In Barcelona there is a city department dedicated to this issue and a 2020-2030 plan with measures that interest me for France, such as social prescribing: allowing a doctor to prescribe free activities or resources offered by the city, from museum visits to walks in nature or adapted sports activities. It is good that Spanish cities draw inspiration from French ecologist cities, but French ecologists also draw inspiration from what is being done in Spanish cities. Not so much from Madrid, which is governed by the right.

Putting ideas such as ecological transition back at the centre of the debate seems even more difficult in a context marked by geopolitical crises and economic instability. How do you see it? How do you try to make your issues count?

I do not entirely agree with the way the question is framed, because what we are experiencing geopolitically proves precisely that the ecologists have been right for a long time and that it is urgent to implement their proposals.

For a long time, Europeans believed that carrying a peace project would be enough to protect us. It was the famous idea of the end of history: peace, prosperity forever and, just in case, armies that would be sufficient. But today we see that peace is not there and that it is not enough to have bombs, ammunition and planes. Our industrial, energy, cultural and digital vulnerabilities are being weaponised by our enemies, especially by Trump and Putin.

"What we are experiencing geopolitically proves precisely that the ecologists have been right for a long time"

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, there was an awakening about our energy dependence on Russia. In 2024, France gave more money to Putin by buying fertilisers, uranium and energy from him than it gave in direct aid to Ukraine. That is a problem. At that time, people said we needed to invest more in home insulation and in so-called social leasing for electric cars, a subsidised leasing programme to facilitate access to electric vehicles, but it did not last long. Then everyone carried on as if nothing had happened.

And then we were surprised again by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, even though the Club of Rome had already warned in 1972 that one day we would have a geopolitical problem because of our dependence on oil.

For me, this does not call ecologist ideals into question. On the contrary, it shows that we arrived too late and that we were not listened to. At the beginning of the conflict, with the European Green Party, we ran a campaign that said: "Let’s insulate our homes, let’s isolate Putin". Today, if we want to guarantee our security and our sovereignty, we must invest in renewable energies, which are the only ones we know how to build quickly and which make us completely independent and autonomous. And we must also invest in reindustrialisation in a coordinated way at European level.
 
In Europe, there has been a backlash against parts of the Green Deal. Beyond the opposition of the radical right, even within the EPP, the party’s secretary general, Dolors Montserrat, said that the pact was a "deindustrialisation plan". I am not asking you to comment on those statements if you do not want to, but I would like to ask you this: is it possible to escape European stagnation by promoting green industry, or do we perhaps need to readjust our objectives?

I do not think the Green Deal is an obstacle to industry. The Green Deal is the condition for our future, for environmental justice and for social justice. If we had done it better, there would have been more social justice. The mistake of the centrists is to believe that ecology can be done without social justice. We disagree.

It is not appropriate to set the Green Deal against industry. We are working on a plan for the French presidential election with clear objectives for France, but we also want a European strategy. It is useless for everyone to do everything. We need to know what some countries already do well, in which sectors we are vulnerable as Europeans and how each country with the capacity and the willingness can contribute to filling those gaps and reducing our vulnerabilities. We need European collective intelligence.

Let me give an example: steel. I come from northern France, where there used to be coal mines and where ArcelorMittal is now. If Arcelor closes in Dunkirk and Fos-sur-Mer, we will not be able to produce European steel. It is not true that it can be reopened in two years. If it closes, it closes. And for the rest of our lives we will depend on Chinese and American steel.

"We ecologists claim to take much better care of industry than those who are allowing French and European industry to decline"

I am not a hypocrite: when I fight for air quality, I go to Arcelor and say that we must be careful, but I prefer steel produced in Dunkirk, under better environmental and social conditions, to Chinese steel that has crossed half the planet and has not been produced with the same energy. We ecologists claim to take much better care of industry than those who are allowing French and European industry to decline. We are very ambitious and very concerned about this issue.

Europe is going through an increasingly intense debate on demography: ageing, low birth rates, the sustainability of the welfare state, migration and territorial balance. From an ecologist perspective, how should this challenge be addressed?

It all starts with a phrase by Emmanuel Macron about the "demographic rearmament" of the French people. It touched me deeply because at that time I was going through medically assisted reproduction and in vitro fertilisation. I already had a first child and had great difficulty having a second. I am now pregnant naturally, but for three years I went through that very complicated process that many European couples experience. Many of us felt it as a kind of provocation, and the couples and women concerned did not experience it well.

On television we see many older white men talking to us about demography as if women’s bodies belonged to them: that the social protection system will collapse, that we will lose the next world war, that the economy will lose power. There is a very strong guilt placed on women.

History shows that when these issues have been approached in this way, especially between the two world wars, that was when very freedom-restricting laws against women were passed. In France, in 1920, contraceptives and any campaign in favour of their use were banned, with disastrous consequences. And what we see in Europe is that natalist reforms targeting women, as in Italy or Hungary, have never really increased birth rates. The countries with the highest birth rates are those that promote equality.

"Demography is not a problem, it is a fact. And if we want to deal with it, we need a living feminist policy"

That means that a woman who does not want children must have the right not to have them, a couple that does not want children must have that right too, and a woman who does want children must have the conditions to carry out that project. If you have housing problems, if you live in unhealthy housing, if you struggle not to skip meals or reduce your portions, you do not necessarily imagine yourself having a child. If you are a woman and you think you will have to stop working because you do not know whether there will be a place in childcare, and that this will affect your retirement, it is not very encouraging. And if, on top of that, you ask yourself what kind of society that child will grow up in, with the climate or war, that does not help either.

The fall in birth rates is also a kind of silent strike of the wombs of women who are not doing well and who do not see themselves in that life. Women who do not want children must be left alone, but we must also take care of those who would like to have them and hesitate because of the conditions in which they could raise them. That is the task of politics. Demography is not a problem, it is a fact. And if we want to deal with it, we need a living feminist policy, much more relevant than all the moralising speeches we hear on television.

To finish, what is your wish for France in 2027?

To avoid the worst and, perhaps, manage to achieve something better.

Thank you very much.