Well, she certainly didn't just hand over the keys to her office and go home. Delphine Batho, recently dismissed from her position as French Minister of the Environment, gave a press conference today in which she took aggressive shots at the Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault and certain "economic lobbies" that wanted her out. Her remarks have been called "politically naive," and they probably were. All of the blame was directed elsewhere, for example, none her own way.
But her political inexperience and lack of press conference skills shouldn't obscure the fact that the Hollande/Ayrault government, when it chose her ministry to take the largest budget cuts in its 2014 budget, announced that, to put it mildly, environmental programs were way, way down on its list of priorities. That, to me, has a lot more significance than Ms. Batho's press conference.
The government's priorities may be jobs, and correctly so. But, more like socialists of 40 or more years ago, they seem to act as if jobs mean infrastructure and regional economic development. It's as if they're out to recreate the "Trentes Glorieuses" the 30 years of post-war economic growth. Thus Ayrault's Notre-Dame-de-Landes airport project just west of Nantes where he was mayor for many years, justified as critical for economic growth in that part of western France. No one in the government seems much interested in what all this does to land and water resources, or whether the jobs being created will still be around in five or ten years.
Meanwhile, Ms. Batho retains a seat in the National Assembly as a deputy from the Deux Sèvres, a largely rural district directly south of Angers and the Loire River. I don't have the impression she was particularly identified with environmental issues before being name to her ministerial position. Nor has she been that close to EELV (Europe Écologie Les Verts) party members. It will be interesting what role she plays now.
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