ABSTRACT
Introduction As the host of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in December 2015, France has been acclaimed for its leadership in brokering the first universally binding climate agreement (e.g. Stothard and Chassany 2015). French climate diplomacy was set in motion long before the start of the 2015 Paris climate conference, mobilizing important administrative and political resources. Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared the fight against climate change a ‘major national cause’ for 2015,1 whereas the Ecology and Energy Minister, Segolène Royal, considered the adoption of the French Law on Energy Transition in July 2015 as a new step towards becoming a ‘nation of environmental excellence’. France can boast of its relatively low levels of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) per capita and carbon intensity – in most part due to its electricity sector dominated by nuclear and hydroelectricity – which have contributed to position it as an ‘inadvertent climate pioneer’ (Szarka 2011). On this basis, the French government and administration have often claimed to assume ‘leadership by example’. France’s bid for leadership has also been driven by ambitions for diplomatic prestige and international ‘grandeur’. It has opportunely assumed the role of an entrepreneurial and, at times, heroic foreign policy leader, notably during the EU climate and energy package negotiations in 2008 as well as during COP21 (see also Chapters 1, 2 and 5). However, France has tended to follow, rather than anticipate or trigger, European and international climate developments. Moreover, ambitious rhetoric has not always been matched by sustained political commitments and implementation. French climate policy developments remain characterized by acute controversies – for example on environmental taxation – and by a humdrum process of policy change. Applied to the French case, the distinction between pioneers and leaders (see Chapter 1) raises the following question: Is it possible to pretend to be a leader without being a pioneer? It is indeed this paradoxical approach that seems to characterize most accurately the French strategy. This raises two further questions: How has the gap between French ambitions and achievements been managed? And how have French international pledges influenced domestic developments? This chapter discusses these questions and argues that France
should be characterized mainly as a symbolic leader. It aims to explain the convoluted French approach to climate leadership, as well as the country’s attempts at closing the gap between its international leadership stance and its reactive national policies, often developed in fits and starts.
