The Greens were key partners for the Socialists and the left in France’s 2026 local elections, but the results were a far cry from the “green wave" of the 2020 elections. What has happened to the French Green party, and what is the state of political ecology today?
In the 2020 local elections several major cities, including Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Lyon, elected green mayors for the first time.
The "green wave" felt like a turning point for the environmental movement and political ecology. The Covid pandemic, an increasing amount of climate-related natural disasters, including a heatwave in the summer of 2019, and youth climate protests supported by the likes of Greta Thunberg had all pushed environmental issues to the forefront.
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Since then, economic concerns have put climate change on the back burner, and the shift was reflected in the 2026 election results.
The Green mayors of Bordeaux and Strasbourg were defeated, and in Lyon, Grégory Doucet only narrowly held on against a centre-right challenger.
"Even if voters in these cities feel that green mayors put good environmental policies into place, on the forefront of their mind were socio-economic issues and questions related to security and employment, which made things difficult for these mayors," Matthieu Gallard, research director at the Ipsos-BVA poling agency told RFI.
No longer feels like a crisis
"For a large part of the French population, there's the growing feeling, as we see in our surveys, that these extreme climate events have become normal. It's not as alarming as it was just a few years ago," Gallard said.
Environmental concerns have also been absorbed into the mainstream, on the left and right. In Paris, even the conservative mayoral candidate, Rachida Dati, promised more green spaces in the city, which was a hallmark of the outgoing Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo’s urban planning.
Her successor, Emmanuel Grégoire, won comfortably in an alliance with the Greens.
"The left needs alliances, just to succeed but to survive," Sylvie Ollitrault, a CNRS researcher who studies green movements, told RFI.
And French Greens have historically leaned left.
"Their agenda on climate, and their interest in transforming the system, places them more on the left than on the right," said Ollitrault, adding that the hardening of the right has made alliances with the Greens increasingly unthinkable.
Listen to an interview with Sylvie Ollitrault in the Spotlight on France podcast:
The left, however, is divided, with the hard-left France Unbowed, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, making inroads, but also causing rifts by taking stances that many see as too radical.
"The difficulty for the Greens now is that they are between two big challenges: the Socialist Party and France Unbowed, which are both fighting to represent the left. And the Greens are in between," said Ollitrault.
During the 2026 local elections, the Socialist party left it up to individual candidates to decide whether to ally with France Unbowed candidates in the second round, and many of those who did lost, raising questions about the strategy ahead of future elections, notably the 2027 presidential polls.
Urban-rural divide
Another challenge for the greens it the urban-rural divide on environmental issues. The 2020 "green wave" was concentrated on big cities.
"We now have two fronts: Big cities like Paris, Lyon, etc., have one set of values, and the other part of France contests those values," said Ollitrault, pointing to Grégoire's victory-night bicycle ride to Paris city hall as a way of displaying his urban green credentials.
In rural and agricultural areas, farmers struggling with economic hardship have pushed back against environmental regulations.
"The majority of farmer organisations are opposed to green positions and ecological norms", said Ollitrault.
The far right National Rally has moved to capitalise on that discontent, strengthening its grip in rural areas.
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Meanwhile, the environmental movement itself appears to be stepping back from formal politics, according to Ollitrault, who says that those active in NGOs and citizen networks are increasingly critical of political parties.
"Political parties are very weak in France, because many people don’t vote – it's a real problem," she said.
"Maybe social transformation and ecology will find more support from associations, NGOs or citizen networks than through political parties."
Listen to an interview with Sylvie Ollitrault in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 142, listen here.
