The EconomistFebruary 1st 2020 Europe 45I
f there isone city that should be a natu-
ral habitat for Emmanuel Macron and his
centrist party, it is Paris. Home to the coun-
try’s liberal elite, as well as to bike-sharing
eco-types who applauded the president’s
pledge to “make our planet great again”, the
French capital is a world away from the ru-
ral roundabouts of the anti-Macron gilets
jaunes. In the second round of the presi-
dential election in 2017, fully 90% of the
city’s voters backed Mr Macron. Yet, thanks
to internal rivalry and mismanagement,
his party is currently making a hash of the
race for mayor of Paris.
The capital, along with all other mu-
nicipalities, goes to the polls for two
rounds of voting on March 15th and 22nd.
In a bid to dislodge Anne Hidalgo, the sit-
ting Socialist mayor of Paris, Mr Macron’s
party, La République en Marche (lrem),
finds itself with, in effect, not just one can-
didate but two. The first, Benjamin Gri-
veaux, is the official nominee. The other,
Cédric Villani, failed to secure the party
nomination but insists on staying in the
race anyway.
Both Mr Griveaux and Mr Villani are
lremdeputies, elected for the first time in- Mr Griveaux is one of the original
“Macron boys”: a co-founder of En Marche,
the party Mr Macron launched to win the
presidency, and a campaign insider who
was propelled directly into government.
Mr Villani is a prize-winning mathemati-
cian, known for his signature three-piece
suit and spider brooches, who has pub-
lished research papers on such topics as
collisional kinetic theory. It was something
of a coup for En Marche to have coaxed him
into running for parliament.
Last July, when the lrem investiture
committee picked Mr Griveaux as the offi-
cial candidate, however, Mr Villani refused
to stand down. The selection process was
flawed, he said; he also defended his right
to “liberty”. The upshot has been to split the
lremvote. Polls now suggest that Mr Gri-
veaux could come third in the first round of
voting, behind both Ms Hidalgo and Ra-
chida Dati, the centre-right Republican
candidate, with Mr Villani trailing in fifth.
A second-round vote would then keep Ms
Hidalgo in the job.
Efforts are afoot to try to broker a peace
and persuade Mr Villani to give up. Mr Mac-
ron even summoned him to the Elysée pal-
ace, but Mr Villani emerged to declare that
he had “a major divergence” with the presi-
dent.OnJanuary29th,aftermuchinternal
soul-searching,lremdecidedtoexpelMr
Villanifromtheparty.Disappointinglyfor
thepresident,hesayshewillcontinuehis
campaignasanindependent.
Furtherrealignmentsarepossible,in-
cludingonearoundtheGreens’candidate,
DavidBelliard.MakingParisgreeneristhe
oneideaallthecandidatesagreeon.Forhis
part,MrGriveauxsaysthathis“doorre-
mainsopen”,shouldMrVillanichangehis
mindaboutrunning.Buttimeisrunning
out.History teachesthatFrance’s presi-
dents,likeitsBourbonkings,oftenstrug-
gletoimposetheirwillonParis,anunruly
citythatfamouslydoesnottakekindlyto
decisionsimposedfromonhigh. 7PARIS
Running two candidates is a bad ideaParis’s mayoral raceHow not to do it
A
cluster ofstate-owned power plants
in north-western Greece have been
spewing smoke and toxic ash over nearby
villages for decades. The plants are fuelled
by lignite, a dirty brown coal extracted
from open-pit mines that scar the local
countryside. Studies have shown that min-
ing communities suffer above-average
rates of lung disease and cancer, yet jobs in
other sectors are scarce in a region with
chronically high unemployment.
Changes may be on the way. Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, the new centre-right prime
minister, has promised to shut down all of
Greece’s 14 lignite-fired power stations by- (Another lignite station currently
under construction will be converted to
run on natural gas.) Fleets of wind turbines
and solar panels will be rolled out across
rehabilitated mining areas. Mr Mitsotakis
is anxious to boost Greece’s green creden-
tials: at present its annual carbon-equiva-
lent emissions are a third higher than
those of Portugal, a similar-sized eumem-
ber state.
Despite being blessed by abundant sun-
shine and strong winds that blow year-
round across the Aegean sea, Greece is still
a clean-energy laggard. That is mostly due
to ppc, the state electricity utility, which
has stuck to lignite to save money, rather
than switching to natural gas and renew-
ables. In 2017 some 70% of homes and busi-
nesses consumed electricity that was pro-
duced at ppc’s lignite-fired power stations.
This year the figure may fall to 50%: small
private suppliers that run natural-gas-fired
plants have picked up customers fleeing
ppc after Mr Mitsotakis’s government
hiked its electricity prices.
The prime minister has set himself a re-
markably ambitious target: renewable
sources are to cover 35% of Greece’s energy
needs by 2030. That would mean tripling
current wind and solar output, at a cost of
around €40bn ($44bn). Consultants pred-
ict a bonanza for foreign investors: Chi-
nese, American, Spanish and Italian com-
panies already own Greek wind and solar
installations and are acquiring licences to
build more.
Oddly, they will face strong opposition
from Greece’s increasingly active environ-
mental movement. It takes up to seven
years for a licence for a wind park to be
granted; many applications are rejected by
specialist judges at the council of state,
Greece’s highest legal body.
Battles loom over plans to allow off-
shore wind parks to be built in the Aegean
and Ionian seas, while increasing the size
of onshore parks. Greece’s environment is
“too fragile” to sustain such big projects,
says Apostolos Pantelis, a hill-walker cam-
paigning against plans to build wind parks
on mountain ridges in the remote Agrafa
region, a refuge for rare griffon vultures,
brown bears and wolves.
Increasing numbers of hikers, mostly
well-heeled northern Europeans, visit
places like the Agrafa thanks to a successful
new system of marking footpaths across
mainland Greece and the islands. They stay
in small hotels in almost deserted villages,
prompting hopes that such places can be
revived as destinations for “soft” tourism.
Mr Pantelis fears building wind parks
would destroy the Agafra’s appeal. New
roads would erode the mountainsides and
noisy, 200m-high turbines would scare
away its wildlife. He says that “people used
to think wind energy would be beneficial
for tourism. But it just ruins the view.” 7
KOZANI AND KARDITSA
The government wants Greeks to burn
less filthy coalEnergyGreening Greece