The real Hulot scandal

More than 10 years ago, in response to his famous « ecological pact », La Décroissance launched the Pact against Hulot. Although signed by more than ten thousand Internet users and widely relayed in the activist world, it was ignored by the mainstream media as eagerly as they had celebrated the first one. What did the Pact against Hulot observe? It could be summed up by this common sense formula of Jean Lassalle, a center-right deputy and far from the common portrait of the zadist with a knife between his teeth, who declared on October 9, 2008 in the National Assembly: « I propose to elevate Nicolas Hulot to the rank of Father of the Nation, and even, taking advantage of the good relations that the President of the Republic has with the Pope, to canonize him. It would indeed be prudent to protect him from justice, which might one day ask him to account for it: because it is indeed the money of the biggest speculators and polluters that he is laundering, or greening, in his foundation! » La Décroissance has developed multiple analyses in this sense, even if it means being redundant at the risk of sometimes tiring its readers. It was quite alone, starting with the Leftwhere the Communist Party, the Socialist Party and of course Europe-Ecologie-les Verts, had hastened to go and sign the pact of the darling of green liberal capitalism and the (eco)society of the spectacle. Moreover, these are the same parties that will never cease to suspect that growth objectors are never anti-capitalist enough… Is it still necessary to argue? It is well known that there is no one more deaf than the one who does not want to hear, but let’s take one more symptomatic example: « Having talked to quite a few car manufacturers, if we set clear rules for them, they will be able to adapt, including the German car industry. » said Nicolas Hulot, still president of his foundation, sponsored by Norauto and Autoroutes du Sud de la France, on the main French state radio channel (France Inter, October 6, 2009). His line has not changed: Long live organic Porsches! Unfortunately, a decade later, some ecologists, like the former rebel José Bové, still support him. On February 28, 2018, the European deputy of the French party Europe Ecologie-les Verts threw him, on this same antenna, a great: « Hold on Nicolas! ».

Our analyses have of course never had access to the microphone of France inter, except through a humorist who was quickly fired for this reason too⁽¹⁾The silence of the media in the face of the Pact against Hulot was so deafening that, out of derision, we created a medal « for the journalist who does his job » for the first of them who dares to talk about it. On September 17, 2008, we ironically reported: « Already more than 5,000 signatures for the « Pact against Hulot » and no, yes no journalist has managed to write a single line on the subject. The medal below is to cut out and put on your jacket if you, a journalist working for a dominant media, are the first to break this taboo. »

And now, 10 years later, the Hulot scandal is exploding in the media.s media! The work of the Pact against Hulot noting the ecological imposture of « the former presenter of the program « Ushuaïa » (TF1) promoted to Minister of State » (Le Monde diplomatiqueJuly 2017) finally arrive on the media scene? Now number 3 in the French government, Nicolas Hulot is the most perfect « useful idiot » of liberal capitalism, as he has been throughout his career; his function has always been to parasitize the space of ecology by promising to make liberal capitalism and the society of the spectacle (eco)compatible. Today, it allows the government to of Emmanuel Macron to give himself a green image at little cost.

No, of course, all this would be to have naive illusions in the media-political system. This kind of in-depth analysis is not only of no interest to the mainstream media, but above all it calls into question what they are. We won’t go into it further here. The only thing that could interest them, or rather fascinate them, are old, prescribed affairs of morality concerning him. This is what excites and zealously sets to work our « great » defenders of press freedom. However, curiously, while the fashion is rather to lynch on the new public place, known as the « social networks », without presumption of innocence, some pretend this time to be indignant. And the government came to the rescue of its protégé. « Depending on whether you are powerful or miserable… » We will not complain Nicolas Hulot especially since he was even a paparazzi in his youth. This early 2018, the most finished product of liberal-capitalism and TV simply found itself in the position of the sprinklered. He himself had explained to us « manipulating » the media, the governments, the companies… At the time, we laughed at this level of naivety.

The « Nicolas Hulot scandal » reveals in fact that of the media-political system which made him (child) king: « I tried one day to become an adult and I definitively gave it up » ( Psychologies magazine, January 2007).

Vincent Cheynet is editor-in-chief of the French newspaper  La Décroissance