Florent Marcellesi: As a Green Party member, across a period spanning three decades, you’ve served over 20 years in office both as a regional councillor for Nord-Pas-de-Calais and mayor of Loos-en-Gohelle. Looking back at the Greens and political ecology in the institutions over this period, what do you think have been their greatest successes?

Jean-François Caron: On the positive side, first there’s the analysis that began with the Club of Rome’s report [The Limits to Growth, 1972] and led to the emergence of the Greens’ political ecology around the world  – the realisation that the planet has limits and that our growth models will, at some point, become incompatible with these limits. It started out as a scientific argument that was then taken up by the first campaign groups I joined, like Friends of the Earth. Then it crystallised and began to take political form. We moved from the realm of influence to the realm of activism and action. Though there’s still denial in society, it’s clear that we’ve reached the end of a system. So that’s a success. It’s also an acknowledgement, albeit a qualified one, that Greens can mobilise around a project and get results.

Aside from these wins, which remind Greens where they’ve come from and what they’ve achieved together, what have been the biggest obstacles or challenges along the way?

While our diagnosis is often broadly accepted, we’re always seen as Cassandras bearing bad news, and that’s one of our problems. Then there’s the question of how far we proceed with political ecology: do we go all in on the environment? Or do we include a strong social dimension as well? Whether it’s on migrants or human rights, for example, it’s never consistent. I think that to address the environment, we have to take a systemic, wider view.

If we want change on, say, global heating or biodiversity, we have to address economic and farming models. And if we want to talk about transport or energy in the home, we have to address social justice. Otherwise, the rich will get renewable energy and insulation, and the poor will get enormous electricity bills for heating their social housing. What’s more, besides the racist vote, which of course exists, the vote for the far right in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais is partly the vote of people who feel left behind and looked down upon since the end of the old industrial model.

So there’s both this idea that we should take a wider, more societal and systemic approach, and at the same time, this tendency to stick to environmental issues. And I’ve felt this contradiction as a mayor. We’re caught in a no man’s land between different visions and expectations.

If we want change on global heating or biodiversity, we have to address economic and farming models. And if we want to talk about transport or energy in the home, we have to address social justice.

How can we overcome this contradiction and escape no man’s land?

For the wider vision, we’ve just got a rough outline for now: enacting national and international transformation is tough because of systemic complexity and because we don’t hold the levers of power. But at a lower level, things can happen. There are stakeholder ecosystems that we can mobilise locally to show we can bring a systemic response to economic, social and environmental issues. It’s fertile ground.

After all these years, it’s sort of what I’m doing today: helping communities to become the stem cells for a new growth model, to thrive together and shift national policies that are currently stuck. Starting local and moving upwards.

So, in the way you see and do politics, the local is the starting point for systemic and wider change. But where do you start, and with which policies, especially in a former mining region that’s been hit hard by crisis and the economic and social decline of the late 20th century?

Somewhat strangely, in my work in the region and my municipality, I haven’t prioritised environmental, economic, or social policies per se. I’ve prioritised fighting distrust – in other words, winning back people’s trust – and that means giving them recognition. I’ve done this through multiple listening exercises, or what we call empowerment. By putting people in a situation where they’re no longer just consumers of public policy, they are empowered. They get involved in shaping and even implementing policies. In Loos-en-Gohelle, we’ve done it with governance and participation through what we call “50-50”: residents’ initiatives and programmes where we sign a contract saying, “this is what residents will do, and this is what the council will do”.

But you have to show that residents’ participation and involvement bring tangible results; that it’s not just a talking shop and meetings for meetings’ sake. There’s a huge reluctance to turn up to public meetings – unless it’s to voice anger. So, we have to show that participatory processes produce results and that these results should be lauded and celebrated, because affect matters. It can trigger deeper transformation and reveal a bedrock on which to build things together.

Fighting distrust also means elected officials leading by example. If there’s inconsistency between what I say and do, and as a Green, I drive around in an SUV and park on the pavement, it’s over. But the main thing is that, whether they’re Green or not, people say to themselves, “he’s consistent”, and that’s part of rebuilding trust.

Regaining trust and positive affect have been catalysts for deeper transformations. What are these transformations?

We worked on transforming imaginations. In this region, we were the pure products of coal. But coal went, and we had to move on. Yet coal is also our history. And we’re not ashamed of it. That’s why I championed making the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining basin a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a way of saying, “We won’t apologise for existing.” Our history is worthy of interest, and the history of miners is just as important as the history of kings. A project like this brings the whole community onboard, getting them involved, turning them into activists. In practical terms, we have transformed slag heaps into venues for all sorts of sports and outdoor activities, like paragliding and concerts, drawing in different partners and crowds each time. On what used to be the main mining site, we now have research facilities and an innovation cluster for the circular economy. All this not only brings jobs, but it also transforms how people imagine growth. We get people and the town moving, and we tell our own history, with all its tensions, contradictions and symbolism. We draw on our past to look ahead to the future together.

When we talk about leaning into our history, we’re really talking about identity. The Greens have often struggled to tackle this question, all the more so with surging nationalist patriotism, which is on full display in the National Rally (RN) stronghold of Hénin Beaumont, just 12 kilometres away from Loos-En-Gohelle. In this context, how can identity be used for good, in a positive way, not to exclude, but to include and build the sense of community you were talking about?

We must not leave identity to the identitarians. Personal identity – yours, mine, everyone’s – is built strategically. To deny this is a huge mistake. We need to know who we are and where we live, both literally and figuratively. And our values and roots are fundamental in this. My great-grandfather was a safety rep in the pit. As a strike leader, he was fired on by the police. He named his children Juvénal, Danton, Rose, Églantine, Louise, Michel, Ferrer, and Voltaire.¹ Juvénal and Danton served as bodyguards for [socialist prime Minister] Léon Blum. So, this is part of my identity, and I’m not going to cast it aside.

What’s interesting is that when you know who you are, you can look other people in the eyes. It’s a conversation between two adults who are comfortable with themselves. To work with others, you first have to exist. So, existing and knowing who you are and what you stand for isn’t being selfish; it’s about self-acceptance and self-knowledge. And it’s what enables constructive dialogue with others. When you look at it like this, identity isn’t about shutting yourself off or looking inwards. For me, it’s actually about daring to be open to others and building things together. It’s about openness.

There’s a second reason why identity matters. For change to happen and an individual and collective process of transformation to begin, you first need civic engagement. And a driver of engagement is identity. In other words, this collective belonging, this pride and associated symbolism, it matters, it moves people. That’s also why, after campaigning to get the mining basin listed by UNESCO, I ended up as President of the Association of French World Heritage Sites. Knowing, recognising and respecting different cultures and their histories empowers us to act.

We must not leave identity to the identitarians. Personal identity – yours, mine, everyone’s – is built strategically. To deny this is a huge mistake.

As well as knowing yourself and recognising others, what advice would you give a young activist joining the green movement in the second quarter of the 21st century, amid culture wars and environmental backlash?

I’d say first, “start with the tangible”. Through the tangible, the local, a place, you have a grip on something. Because one of the problems we have at the moment is the feeling that we no longer have a grip on anything, and that creates despair and distrust. Local action creates spaces for investment, flourishing, production, results, growth, and self-confidence.

I also think it’s important not to panic in times like these. The environmental backlash is a sign that we’ve started to change things. It’s a reaction to our victories and breakthroughs, and it’s also a good sign in my eyes. When they’re nice to you, it means you don’t matter. And today it’s quite the opposite. So, we’ve got to keep our cool and not feed that machine of head-on confrontation, though that doesn’t mean we should accept everything. I’m not for wishy-washy consensus. You have to own disagreements and work through them. There are ways to handle controversies, to accept them, and to find common ground, as we did with the Fabrique des Transitions. But because it’s complex, it takes time and is built over the long term. Otherwise, it’s green totalitarianism: we impose emergency measures in the name of urgency – and there lies the risk of eco-fascism.

I’d like the green movement to channel this burning obligation to transform things, while at the same time bringing calm and a capacity to connect and unite the initiatives springing up everywhere, championing them politically without losing its soul or being right but alone. I myself have spent years making alliances that some may see as unnatural…

In Spain, they call them “uncomfortable alliances” [alianzas incómodas], alliances that cross lines in the sand and break taboos.

I’ll give you two examples. As a Green mayor, I work with farmers from the FNSEA [France’s largest farmers’ union]: they commit to going organic, and the municipality provides land. They find it hard to say they work with a Green mayor, and I find it hard to say I work with people from the FNSEA. But in practice, we’ve switched 40 per cent of local farmland to organic production despite the hyper-industrial model used in the area. We’re getting results, and the farmers themselves say that “agribashing” has stopped, they’re no longer being attacked, and their relationship with the community has improved to the point where the media are taking an interest.

Another example is building industry executives, with very conservative, capitalist business models. The starting positions are clear: they’re evil polluters who make concrete, and I’m a loony environmentalist with my head in the clouds. Yet they came to see me and said: “Your town is a standard bearer for sustainable building practices, and we’d like to set up shop there,” to which I replied: of course. When they got here, they set up new research facilities and trained their companies in sustainable building, which created jobs for the town in tomorrow’s professions. So, this new alliance is a win-win. It doesn’t mean we’re married, but it does mean that we can find common ground and move forward together, so long as we don’t lose sight of the final destination. The wider vision is undoubtedly to transform this capitalist model. I haven’t abandoned my ideals, but I don’t go to work every day saying it’s revolution or bust.

Should political ecology accept capitalism?

No. I’m anticapitalist, of course.We can’t accept the rules of the capitalist game. But if I spend my time running around town with signs saying, “I’m anticapitalist,” I’ll create a space for ideological confrontation, which is all well and good in debates and discussions, but doesn’t work in my relations with the community. On the other hand, showing that we can create a social solidarity economy for local renewable energy with residents, that’s an anticapitalist answer. Personally, I’ve always tried not to posture, shout, or lecture. When I see the posturing in national politics, it drives me to despair. It’s a far cry from seeking local dialogue, working through disagreements, and building consensus.

Building consensus can seem far removed from wielding power as understood by most of the political class and the electorate. With their original distrust of the state, Greens have an ambiguous relationship with the concept of power. So, what does the exercise of power look like to you as a Green in office?

There are two ways to understand power: there’s the “power over”, and then there’s the “power to”. In politics, power is usually about dominating others. This can be useful for getting things done, but it also leads to patterns of permanent conflict, control, obstruction, and authoritarianism. And then it gets to a point where it’s just about holding on to power. Power becomes alienating.

If we think about it as the “power to” – in other words, the power to do things and increase our capacity to act – the question is turned on its head. For example, if I want to switch my town to 100 per cent renewable energy, how am I going to build up the power to do that? I’m going to look to stakeholders: that means working with energy companies, with landowners, with people bothered by wind turbines, and listening to their viewpoints.

The “power to” is the power to bring people in. It’s the power to assemble everyone’s talents, putting the elected official in the role of organiser, not truth holder, in an “I’m going to tell you what’s good for you” kind of way. After the organiser phase comes the decision-maker phase, because we have legitimacy as elected officials. We explain to people that, at some point, tough choices will have to be made and that, in my case, legitimacy lies in the town or regional council.

Power is also about asking: “How can I build strength?” We’re not there to play it safe; we’re facing major global problems, so we have to be ambitious. And ambition can be ego-driven, or it can be project-driven. I believe we need ambitious projects, and we need to build strength for this. For instance, the fact that we were re-elected with 82.1 per cent of the vote in the 2008 local elections in Loos-en-Gohelle shows that it really is possible to get people onboard with a radical environmentalist project, and in a mining area, no less. And that’s why I think it’s so important to assess what’s been achieved in the places run by Greens, like Grenoble, Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Tours, and Poitiers. In other words, to understand the processes by which political and cultural majorities are collectively built.

So you advocate that Greens switch from a minority to a majority culture?

Exactly. Since the 1970s, we’ve had an opposition, outsider culture where the goal is to create buzz, pull stunts. You need that to break through and shake up the system. But there comes a point where this opposition culture holds us back. We’re held back by the fact that people like me are viewed with suspicion: “How can people vote for him?” There were doubts even among like-minded individuals: “If he’s a mayor, is he really a Green?” We’ve got this rebel, outsider culture. So, it’s no accident that we’ve got an activist base drawn to this opposition culture, which then reinforces our oppositional status and our image as killjoy Greens, and so forth.

The Greens partly suffer from this syndrome, but now we need bridge builders.

It’s what I call “pioneer syndrome”. Being a pioneer is incredibly hard yet exhilarating. You blaze a trail and take a lot of stick, but you have lots of adventures along the way. There’s a thrill that pioneers get from exploring new paths. And all Greens, from my era at least, are pioneers, me included. We’re pioneers because we broke the mould in our approach. Pioneers form small, tight-knit groups that create extremely intense personal experiences, but at the risk of becoming insular. There’s also the danger that pioneers can’t handle society catching up with them. And when that happens, they have to go off and find something else to pioneer.

The Greens partly suffer from this syndrome, but now we need bridge builders. Bridge builders are different. They’re the people who take what pioneers create and bring it to the rest of society.

In Loos-En-Gohelle, were you both pioneer and bridge builder?

People often told me that I was someone who wore two hats; someone who could talk to workers and miners as well as civil servants and ministers; someone who sought to explore new ground but who also saw that cooperating means understanding the constraints and interests of others, and being willing to negotiate. We were successful because, in addition to creating long-term conditions for bringing about profound transformation, we adopted a governing mindset.

And this holds a key for the future. I think that 50 years on, it’s time for political ecology to shift to a governing mindset.

Note: Thanks to Ambroise Cousin for the technical support.

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1. All names of revolutionaries and prominent historical personalities. ↩︎