Cléon (France) (AFP) – Raphaël Glucksmann, vying for the left-wing primary, promised Friday to "talk about ecology throughout the presidential campaign", during a visit to the Renault factory in Cléon (Seine-Maritime), where he developed his proposal to put a million electric cars under social leasing.

Published on: 02/10/2026 - 18:22

The day after a second televised debate of the five candidates in the Social Democratic primary, which did not address the ecological question, the MEP for Place publique regretted that this subject, central this summer at the time of the heatwave and the fires, was now forgotten.

he said he was “shocked by the ability of the political and media world to skip” this recent climate crisis.

In the Renault factory in Cléon, which produces 4,500 electric motors per week, notably for the Renault 5, the candidate recalled that he wanted to allow modest French people to have access to an electric car for "100 euros per month".

Mr. Glucksmann wants one million vehicles to be made available, which would cost 6 billion euros, he explained.

“What we are proposing would allow the working classes to no longer depend on the rise in fuel prices,” he insisted.

Accompanied by the environmentalist senator Yannick Jadot, and the PS mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, who rallied behind him, the MEP promised “an ecological revolution, which will also be an industrial revolution”.

For him, "it's the same fight as when we fight for school. We fight for sovereignty and France", he added, in the middle of the movement to block high schools to protest against the lack of resources and teachers.

“Talking about ecology is also talking about youth,” he added, believing that “our children” should “be able to live in a habitable France”.

While the government accuses LFI of fueling the high school students' movement and the violence, Mr. Glucksmann was indignant: "if he thinks that by talking about La France insoumise, instead of talking about teachers not being replaced, the state of school buildings, teachers' salaries, that will help to evacuate the crisis, on the contrary, it will fuel it."

© 2026 AFP

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