After a summer dominated by extreme weather events, political responses to the climate crisis seem timid and far short of French people’s expectations, experts tell Euronews.
Huge wildfires in Gironde, in the Landes and in the Var. Back-to-back heatwaves across the country. Severe drought hitting agriculture hard. This summer, France has been put under severe strain by the forces of nature.
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Last winter, the country had already gone through several months punctuated by a series of weather fronts and storms (Goretti, Ingrid, Nils, Pedro), causing major flooding across mainland France.
With only a few months to go until the next presidential election, environmental issues are therefore expected to occupy an unprecedented place in the political debate. Long championed by the left, the topic has now become unavoidable, pushing the right and the far right to try to take it on.
For, today, "in view of the delays and the seriousness of the situation, France no longer has a choice: it must adapt, and fast", warns the Réseau Action Climat association, which challenges the record of recent successive governments, which "have not taken the necessary measures to prepare the country for the effects of climate change".
And yet the alarm has been raised for several years. 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 the Northern Hemisphere has experienced in 1,400 years", the report also noted.
Political leaders 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 their loved ones' health and 48% for their own health during the summer of 2026.
The polling institute also indicates that the French "are looking first and foremost to the public authorities for solutions": 79% of respondents want public measures to help the population cope with heatwaves.
For its part, a study by Ademe published last year put at 6.3 million the number of French people who are moderately eco-anxious, showing early symptoms that should not be allowed to worsen. "2.1 million are thought to be 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) specified.
The problem is that they are not necessarily being heard by political figures. "Most parties and presidential candidates seem out of touch with the everyday realities of French people who have been severely affected" by these events, says Anne Bringault, programme director at Réseau Action Climat, speaking to Euronews.
"Given the unprecedented challenge facing humanity and biodiversity, the numerous deaths caused by heatwaves, the economic losses, especially for farmers, the houses destroyed by fires and parched natural environments, the political response appears very timid and nowhere near meeting the expectations of French people or their perception of the tangible impacts of climate change", she says.
Appearing on France Inter (source in French) this Tuesday, Jean-Marc Jancovici, founder and president of the Shift Project think tank, was even more scathing, claiming that the political class is "in a form of denial" about climate change.
The causes brushed aside
A view shared by Eva Morel, secretary general of QuotaClimat. "There is a feeling that elections are precisely the moments when ecology struggles to find a way through", she laments to Euronews, before trying 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 is generally fairly favourable on the subject."
She goes even further. "Above all, we cannot hope for a constructive debate on the subject if, when climate disasters occur, we only talk about the facts and do not try to understand the underlying factors, both the causes and the structural solutions that would help to remedy them", stresses Eva Morel.
She then takes the example of the events of summer 2026, which sparked discussions focusing "mainly on observations and not necessarily on explanations". "So, for instance, we talked more about climate, which is unavoidable. But we talked less about fossil energy", she regrets. "From there, we cannot really expect the proposals from the various candidates to be convincing in addressing the root of the problem", the expert goes on.
Politicians do... politics
"Which of the candidates puts at the core of their programme the fact that the world is going to change? No one", snaps Jean-Marc Jancovici. According to him, the programmes of would-be or declared candidates in the next presidential election lack any 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 tackle a crisis that profoundly destabilises citizens' ways of life and to come up with an appealing project", she argues.
"Right-wing and centrist parties stick to their lane, like Édouard Philippe, who chose to highlight immigration issues during" his trip to Mayotte "", says Anne Bringault. Eva Morel agrees: "But even just on adaptation, the right, as a political family, still does not see it as a political issue."
As for the left, "electoral opportunism, in a context of competition to scoop up green votes, seems to play a significant part", continues the Réseau Action Climat programme director. "What we are seeing is that, today, the environmental programmes of left-wing parties are still more substantial than those of the right, and that has been the case for several years. [...] What we find interesting is how far political discourse mirrors scientific discourse. And today it seems to be mainly on the left that this is happening."
The National Rally, king of disinformation
On the other side of the political spectrum, the National Rally "is trying in a hurry to throw on a green costume by advocating simplistic solutions that are hardly realistic financially or technically, such as widespread air conditioning", analyses Anne Bringault.
"In reality, they focus on hot topics. And since climate has now become a hot topic, they focus on it too. It is purely opportunistic", adds Eva Morel, who acknowledges that the National Rally has rowed back on its 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 integrated environmental issues at all. They have no proposals that would genuinely protect us from the consequences, let alone tackle the causes."
She also accuses the party led by Jordan Bardella of spreading, in her view, misleading information. "These are narratives that are deliberately orchestrated because they work in public opinion, instrumentalising moments that attract a lot of attention. [...] It has been shown that this is an obstruction strategy that works. It blocks public policies that are supposed to be effective", explains the expert, who cites low-emission zones as an example.
"And what we fear is that, alongside this obstruction, there is an effort to discredit political opponents and environmental defenders by demonising them. And by doing that, they push the solutions away from the problem, even though the problem is highly visible", concludes Eva Morel.
