Groenen sterk vooruit in Frankrijk (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Greens, the only party grouping to increase its representation in the European Parliament, made a shocking leap forward in France and almost pushed the opposition Socialists into third place.

Elsewhere in Europe, however, the continent that obsessed itself with discussion of climate change and the need to rapidly develop legislation to combat the planetary crisis, results for the ecologists were a mixed bag, losing a smattering of seats in a number of key member states while winning a handful elsewhere.

In total, according to the European Parliament's estimates, the Greens together with their allies are up to 51 seats from 43 in 2004, although the figures are still likely to shift in the coming days. The result is all the more impressive in that the total number of seats within the European Parliament has been reduced from 785 to 736.

The co-leader of the Greens, Philippe Lamberts has blamed its defeat in Italy and in Spain however on its alliance with far left groups and says that if the party is to advance across Europe, it must abandon these old allies and attract voters from the mainstream left, the centre and the centre-right.

As of Monday (8 June), France's Europe Ecologiste list had startled all observers by capturing 16.2 percent of the national vote - almost pipping the Parti Socialiste, who dropped to 16.8 percent.

The result gives the European Greens 14 seats in France, up from six in 2004, when they ran as Les Verts.

"This 7 June, 2009, was the D-Day for ecology politics in France and in Europe," leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit said following the results.

This time around, Mr Cohn-Bendit put together a more formidable coalition of Les Verts, alterglobalisation activists around farmer-militant Jose Bove and the Fédération Régions et Peuples Solidaires, or the Regions and Peoples' Solidarity Federation, a grouping of left-oriented nationalists in France from Alsace, Corsica, Brittany, Savoy and the Basque, Catalan and Occitan parts of the country.

The names of Mr Cohn-Bendit, the famous 1960s Franco-German left-wing revolutionary, Mr Bove, known for his opposition to GM foods and chief bull-dozer of a McDonalds in the south of France were plastered across the coalition's banners in the style of a Hollywood movie poster alongside a third Green ‘celebrity', Eva Joly, the Norwegian-French anti-corruption campaigner.

In Denmark, the party also increased its representation from one to three seats, and gained an extra seat in each of Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland and Sweden.

However, the grouping lost two in Italy, and one each in Spain and the Netherlands. As of writing, it was uncertain whether the Greens would be able to hold onto their one seat in Austria.

The Greens were also locked out of the new member states once again, despite hopes that they might be able to establish something of a beachhead in the Czech Republic.

The party had placed high hopes on the result in the Czech Republic, with endorsements from both anti-Communist hero Vaclav Havel and aristocratic ex-foreign minister Karl Schwarzenberg.

Philippe Lamberts, co-leader of the European Greens and recently elected MEP from Belgium, was nevertheless thrilled with the result.

He explained to EUobserver that for the Greens to replicate their success in France, they needed to do three things: be united while widening the party's coalition, being able to link climate change to a credible economic vision and offering solid candidates.

Abandon far left

"This was the recipe for success in France. In Italy, it's very sad that we lost our seats there, but they could not link their green vision with the economy. They couldn't do this because they allied themselves with the extreme left, as they did in Spain"

"They did it this time as they did last time, and the track record shows that when you ally yourselves with the extreme left, you never move beyond three to five percent," Mr Lamberts, a sales executive for IBM in charge of the automobile, aerospace and arms industries in southwestern Europe said. "It's a recipe for failure."

The alliance with regional nationalists that occurred in France, he conceded would not work in Spain.

As for the east, Mr Lamberts argued that the reverse was the case. "We are still very much dealing with the Berlin Wall generation, and for them, anything that isn't extremely market-oriented, it doesn't fly."

"The younger generation realises that market forces left on their own don't work either, and that's where our hope is," he added. "But it's also true that there was a lot of internal division in the Czech Republic."

"Still, it's true we really have to build our parties in the east."