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Blog: It looks very much as if former French judge Eva Joly will be deselected as presidential candidate for the Greens in the March 2012 elections. She has failed to speak in favour of the recent deal between her Green Party and the Socialist Party and has also refused to pledge to vote for the Socialist candidate in the second round of the elections.

The Greens want France, which derives a higher proportion of its energy supply from nuclear power than any other country in the world, to end its reliance on nuclear energy. However, they have just cut a deal with the Socialists to abandon their opposition to the completion of a new nuclear reactor at Flamanville in northern France. In exchange, the Socialists will not stand against them in a specified number of parliamentary constituencies. It is also understood  that the Greens will be allocated government portfolios if the Socialists succeed in unseating Nicolas Sarkozy as President.

Presumably, Joly is not prepared to accept that the Greens abandon their principled opposition to nuclear power in exchange for seats in Government (where, in any case, they would be largely in the minority).  However, the lure of office is very strong and Green Parties elsewhere have succumbed to it without much scruple. In Germany, for instance, the Greens held the Foreign Ministry in the cabinet of Socialist Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. However, no Green policies of any kind were adopted by Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

However that may be, it is hard to see Eva Joly lasting the course. Her bête noire, the rightwing Green MEP, Daniel Cohen-Bendit, a friend of Joschka Fischer, must be rubbing his hands with glee.