Social-ecology

Social-ecology is a political movement that seeks to "link social and ecological issues". Theorized by Éloi Laurent, it has mainly been used in France by the Socialist Party (SP). In his 2011 book of the same name, Éloi Laurent proposes through social-ecology "a green economic model to reduce inequalities and preserve and conserve natural resources (p. 209), in order to adapt the globalized capitalist system to the context of the ecological crisis ". Scholar Michel Gueldry points out that social-ecology, represented by Éloi Laurent in France, is just one expression of "ecological thought", along with "simple living" (Pierre Rabhi), libertarian eco-communalism (Murray Bookchin), ecosocialism, political ecology ("in the sense of the vast leftist movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Hervé Kempf in France") and deep ecology. In 1992, Ségolène Royal, Minister for the Environment in the Pierre Bérégovoy government, declared on the political program L'Heure de vérité: "If I wanted to sum it up in one word, I'm a social-ecologist", after specifying that, for her, "the environment is also a humanism" and that "what concerns me are inequalities in relation to the environment, and that's how I chose my priorities". For her, social justice and the environment are intimately linked. At the 1992 Rio Summit, she defended environmental justice in north–south economic relations, attacking the United States of America in the process. In 2003, Laurent Fabius, whose movement played "a decisive role in the evolution of the Socialist Party's ecological discourse" according to academic Timothée Duverger, argued "for a social-ecology", calling for ecology to become "central to the definition of the Socialist Party's policies". In 2010, the SP placed the notion of social-ecology at the heart of its new project: in terms of ecology, it advocated "eco-conditionality of tax breaks for businesses and an eco-modulable VAT", as well as a "climate-energy contribution".