"The response seems timid": what role for ecology in the presidential race?

Huge wildfires in Gironde, in the Landes and in the Var. Repeated heatwaves in quick succession across the country. Severe drought seriously affecting agriculture. This summer, France has been severely tested by the elements.

Last winter, the country had already gone through several months punctuated by a series of weather systems and storms (Goretti, Ingrid, Nils, Pedro), causing major flooding across France.

With only a few months to go before the next presidential election, environmental issues are expected to take an unprecedented place in the political debate. Historically championed by the left, the topic has now become unavoidable, pushing the right and the far right to get to grips with it.

Because today, "given the delays and the seriousness of the situation, France no longer has a choice: it must adapt, and quickly", warns the association Réseau Action Climat, which questions the action of recent successive governments, which "have not taken the necessary measures to adapt the country to the effects of climate change".

And yet, warnings have been issued for several years now. As early as 2013, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) stated that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal and, since the 1950s, many of the changes observed are unprecedented over decades to millennia".

"The years 1983 to 2012 are probably the warmest 30-year period that the Northern Hemisphere has experienced for at least 1,400 years", the report also noted.

Political figures out of touch

An issue that more and more citizens are taking into account. In a survey published on Monday 24 August (source in French), Ipsos reveals that 64% of French people felt "anxiety or fear" for the health of their loved ones and 48% for their own health during the summer of 2026.

The polling institute also indicates that French people "expect above all solutions from the public authorities": 79% of respondents want public measures to help the population cope with heatwaves.

For its part, a study by Ademe published last year estimated that 6.3 million French people are moderately eco-anxious, showing early symptoms that should not be allowed to worsen. "2.1 million are highly eco-anxious, with intense and chronic symptoms" and "420,000 of them have mental health that is genuinely at risk", the study (source in French) noted.

The problem is that they are not necessarily being heard by political leaders. "Most parties and presidential candidates seem out of touch with the everyday realities of French people who are severely affected" by events, says Anne Bringault, programme director at Réseau Action Climat, speaking to Euronews.

"Faced with an unprecedented challenge for humanity and biodiversity, with the numerous deaths caused by heatwaves, the economic losses, particularly for farmers, the houses destroyed by fires and nature dried out, the political response appears very timid and nowhere near matching French people's expectations or their perception of the concrete impacts of climate change", she says.

Speaking on France Inter (source in French) this Tuesday, Jean-Marc Jancovici, founder and president of the think tank Shift Project, was even more scathing, claiming that the political class is "in a form of denial" about climate change.

Causes being ignored

A view shared by Eva Morel, secretary-general of the association QuotaClimat. "We have the feeling that elections are precisely the moments when ecology struggles to find a way through", she laments to Euronews, before attempting to explain the reasons for this lack of interest. "In fact, they themselves are not encouraged to understand and to put forward ambitious ideas on this issue, because the media reception of their statements on the subject is generally quite favourable."

She goes even further. "Above all, we cannot hope for a constructive debate on the subject when, as soon as climate disasters occur, we talk only about the situation and fail to try to understand the underlying factors – both the causes and the structural solutions that would make it possible to address them", stresses Eva Morel.

She cites the example of the events of summer 2026, which sparked discussions focusing "mainly on observations and not necessarily on explanations". "So, for example, we talked more about climate, which is in a way unavoidable. But we talked less about fossil energy", she regrets. "From there, we cannot really expect the proposals of the various candidates to be convincing when it comes to tackling the root of the problem", the expert continues.

Politicians just doing politics

"Which of the candidates puts at the heart of their programme the fact that the world is going to change? No one", criticises Jean-Marc Jancovici. In his view, the programmes of potential or declared candidates for the next presidential election are stripped of coherent environmental measures. "You find inconsistencies everywhere", says the president of Shift Project.

For Eva Morel, this situation is explained in particular by the difficulty, in "a political system that rewards demagoguery", of asking candidates to address a crisis that profoundly destabilises citizens' lifestyles while still offering a desirable project.

"The parties of the right and the centre stay in their lane, like Édouard Philippe, who chose to put immigration issues centre stage during" his trip to Mayotte, says Anne Bringault. Eva Morel agrees: "But even when it comes to adaptation alone, the right as a political family still considers that it is not a political issue."

As for the left, "electoral opportunism, in a context of competition to capture green votes, seems to play a significant role", continues Anne Bringault.

"What we see is that today the environmental platforms of left-wing parties are still more substantial than those of the right, and that has been the case for several years", adds Eva Morel. "What we find interesting is the extent to which political discourse mirrors scientific discourse. And today, this seems to be happening more on the left."

The RN, king of disinformation

On the other side of the political spectrum, the Rassemblement National "is hurriedly trying to dress itself up in green by advocating simplistic solutions that are barely realistic financially and technically, such as the widespread use of air conditioning", analyses Anne Bringault.

"In reality, they focus on whatever is hot in the news. And since climate is now part of the hot news agenda, they focus on it. It is purely opportunistic", adds Eva Morel, who acknowledges that the RN has rowed back on its past statements about the IPCC's credibility or the reality of global warming, even if this "is not enough". "The problem is that their political software has not at all integrated environmental issues. They have no proposals that would genuinely protect people from the consequences, and even less so from the causes."

She also criticises the party led by Jordan Bardella for relaying, in her view, misleading information. "These are narratives that are deliberately orchestrated because they work with public opinion, instrumentalising moments that attract a lot of attention. [...] It has been shown that this is an obstruction strategy that works. It obstructs the implementation of public policies that are supposed to be effective", the expert explains, citing the example of low-emission zones.

"And what we fear is that, alongside this obstruction, there is a role in disqualifying political opponents and environmental defenders by demonising them. And by doing that, they distance the solutions from the problem, even though the problem is clearly visible", concludes Eva Morel.