French Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili visits the Fontainebleau forest | Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images

Barbara Pompili just got one of the most dangerous jobs in French politics.

She was named last week as minister of ecological transition — the fourth person to get the portfolio under the administration of French President Emmanuel Macron.

It's a crucial job at a time when Macron has made climate change and a green coronavirus recovery key parts of his political program.

"I want to be a minister who delivers results," Pompili said after landing the job, adding that "what the French people want is that [climate goals] are transformed into concrete actions."

Getting what's formally the No. 2 post in the French government is the end of a long political journey for Pompili, 45, highlighting her gradual shift from an ecological firebrand to a politician who's going to have to make difficult compromises between her green beliefs and the government's agenda.

Conservatives fear Pompili will ram through what they see as punitive green measures on climate change.

Her "light-green" brand is similar to that of former environment minister Nicolas Hulot, but with less star power and more political experience.

Pompili will have to implement France's decarbonization strategy and translate into law the proposals of the Citizens' Climate Convention — a novel effort to get ordinary people involved in climate policymaking. She will also play a central role in drafting France's economic recovery plan from the coronavirus crisis. She insisted she's "going to have the means to push ecology into the economy."

Crucially, she'll be the nuclear sector's main contact person, in charge of reducing the share of the atom in the electricity mix. Her anti-nuclear stance risks pitting her against the sector's heavyweights in a dossier that was instrumental in Hulot's departure.

But there are worries about how she's going to be able to do that delicate political dance.

Tricky legacy

"I'm afraid she won’t have enough margin of maneuver,” said Karima Delli, a French Green MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s transport committee. "Where Nicolas Hulot has failed, I believe that unfortunately, she will not be able to succeed.”

Macron's first environment minister, a charismatic green activist and TV host, roared into the job being called "The man who wants to save the world" but he ended up quitting in frustration at being marginalized on key policy issues.

"She won't be as isolated as Hulot because she knows the state apparatus, the cabinets, she has this experience that Hulot didn't have," Arnaud Schwartz, president of the environmental group France Nature Environnement, told POLITICO. "Pompili has a political experience that allows her to see very clearly in the game of some lobbies that are against higher environmental protection."

Hulot was followed by François de Rugy, who quit after being accused of spending taxpayers’ money on lavish dinners and home renovations.

Pompili's immediate predecessor Elisabeth Borne becomes labor minister. Borne spent less than a year in the post, and didn't have the political muscle to put her own stamp on the portfolio, facing the same problems as her predecessors in trying to run a file where Macron himself casts a big shadow. She did manage to push through laws on clean mobility, long-term energy planning, waste and the circular economy, and spent her final weeks in office on issues like boosting bicycle use.

Pompili's job is especially crucial for the president in the wake of last month's local elections that saw the Greens do very well.

"Barbara Pompili's experience and commitment on environmental issues are not in doubt, but we are unfortunately skeptical about the real influence she will have when the president is omnipresent and the majority systematically unravels any significant progress against climate change," Jean-François Julliard, director general of Greenpeace France, said in a statement.

A French Realo

Pompili isn't a well-known public figure and has been slowly sliding away from her left-wing green origins to a more centrist posture, mirroring the shift seen in many German Green politicians who transformed from ideological firebrands to "Realos" making an accommodation with messy political reality.

Before joining Macron's centrist La République En Marche (LREM) party, she campaigned with the Greens for 15 years and left to create her own Ecologist Party in 2015 with de Rugy. She joined former Socialist President François Hollande's government as junior biodiversity minister in 2016, which was seen as a betrayal by her green political family.

Pompili was the first minister in Hollande's government to openly support Macron's presidential bid and his green program, saying it was "the only one that can be implemented."

Despite her political shift, she hasn't always been politically reliable for Macron, opposing the president on a number of files as head of the National Assembly’s sustainable development committee.

She abstained in last year's vote to ratify the EU-Canada trade deal, defended amendments on the transparency and labeling of genetically modified organisms used in food products in defiance of the government's advice, as well as opposed delays in the country's strategy to reduce pesticides use and the phase-out of the weedkiller glyphosate.

Pompili isn't a well-known public figure and has been slowly sliding away from her left-wing green origins | Pool photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

An anti-nuclear politician who wrote a damning report pointing at the weaknesses of the French nuclear industry, Pompili openly disagrees with Macron's view that nuclear is an energy source with a future. That stance is going to be difficult to maintain as in her new portfolio, which includes weighing in on issues such as the controversial construction of a new generation of nuclear reactors at Flamanville.

Pompili is described by her colleagues as hard-working and pragmatic.

"She has full legitimacy to deal with environmental issues, she is familiar with the files and the parliament, which allows her to be operational right away," said LREM MP Bérangère Abba, who sits in the sustainable development committee.

But conservatives fear Pompili will ram through what they see as punitive green measures on climate change. As an MP, she pushed for green strings to be attached to public bailout money.

"Your priority is to implement the proposals of the Citizens' Climate Convention, which is a catalog of taxes, standards and bans," said MP Jean-Marie Sermier from the right-wing Les Républicains, adding: "We do not want a punitive ecology that would oppose [choosing] the planet against its people, that promotes degrowth."

On the other hand, some of the convention members welcomed her nomination. "She worked with us on the substance of the proposals," Amandine Roggeman, one the 150 participants, told POLITICO, adding that "she knows how the parliament works, she can be an ally."

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