Green voters in France broadly supportive of nuclear power: survey

Most French Green party supporters are supportive of nuclear power, notably to secure the country’s energy independence, according to a recent survey, which goes against the party’s long-held anti-nuclear beliefs.

Read the original French article here.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Elli Tessier, co-head of the Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) energy committee, told Reporterre that young party members were trying to change the party’s position on nuclear power.

One force-shifting view among the younger generation is the engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici whose pro-nuclear think tank, The Shift Project, is an influential voice among students at top engineering schools.

“We do have some members who may be more open than before on this issue,” admitted Camille Hachez, co-leader of the Young Ecologists, in comments for Reporterre.

However, she told EURACTIV France there was no feeling “that there is a generational break on the issue” and those who are open to nuclear energy remain “a very small minority”.

Green party voters may see it differently, though. The shift could pose problems for the party, which is set to elect its new secretary to replace Julien Bayou, who resigned in September over domestic abuse allegations.

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Fading opposition to nuclear

Opposition to nuclear is indeed fading among Green supporters, according to an Elabe poll for Les Echos, Radio Classique and the Montaigne Institute published on 3 November. 

Among party supporters, 49% favour developing new nuclear capacities to compensate for the retirement of ageing reactors, with a 3% even preferring nuclear development to renewables. 46%, meanwhile, say they favour progressively reducing the country’s dependence on nuclear.

Last year, 26% of Green supporters said they backed nuclear development, according to another Elabe survey carried out in November 2021.

These figures show a drastic shift among supporters of a party that historically opposes nuclear, though this long-held opposition “has been based on the danger of accidents and the management of nuclear waste”, explained Hachez.

“The territorial anchoring of these struggles is still very important,” said Hachez, who is from the Lorraine region, where the controversial Cigéo nuclear waste burial project is located.

Nuclear: a guarantee for independence?

Among Green party supporters, 75% believe nuclear to be a guarantee for “independence” compared to the 54% who believed this in November 2021. 

This shift in opinion, probably fueled by the Ukraine war, did not come as a surprise to Hachez. According to her, the Green’s openness to nuclear was already visible earlier this year during the presidential election.

Yannick Jadot, the Green candidate in the April elections, insisted on maintaining the country’s existing nuclear fleet until there is a sufficient share of renewables in the grid to warrant a nuclear exit.

Jadot, who represents the centrist wing of the party, recently came under attack during an environmental protest in Sainte-Soline by supporters of a more radical branch of the party who are closer to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (LFI).

In a reversal of previous positions, Mélenchon sympathisers now tend to be less complacent about nuclear power today than their green allies.

Disconnect between supporters and party?

On the side of top party officials, Hachez said there is no disconnect between supporters and elected representatives “because the pro-nuclear people do not join the party”. According to her, “supporters do not make party policy”.

However, the survey seems to point in a different direction. According to Marine Tondelier, a candidate in the running to become party secretary on 10 December, this suggests a need for a “doctrinal rearmament”, she told Reporterre.

The nuclear issue could thus deepen divisions within the left-wing NUPES alliance, of which EELV is a member, with the new party leader possibly looking to mend rifts between party members and the electorate by softening the stance on nuclear.

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[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic and Frédéric Simon]

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