The Independent Ecological Movement () is a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

founded by Antoine Waechter, former presidential candidate of The Greens in 1994. The MEI hoped to replace the Greens as the major green party, but due to the Green's electoral deals with larger parties, it failed to do so. They claim to be purely ecologist, and neither on the left or right. Waechter failed to win enough endorsements to be a candidate in the 1995 French presidential election. The party ran candidates in the 2004 regional elections and in the 2004 European Parliament election in France and were able to prevent the Greens from gaining more seats, such as in the Eastern EU parliamentary region where the MEI's 3% were enough to prevent the Greens from taking 2 seats there instead of one. In the 2007 presidential election, Antoine Waechter rallied the centrist Francois Bayrou after failing to be a candidate himself. Before the 2007 general election, the party signed an electoral deal with Ecology Generation, the Greens and CAP21 having refused to join. 133 MEI candidates nationwide ran for the assembly's 577 seats. 84 candidates obtained 1% or more, even with Green opposition. The MEI seems to have become France's second green party. Despite being favourable to the Europe Écologie coalition, for the

2009 European Parliament election The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Member of the European Parliament, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent s ...

, the party ran as part of the Independent Ecological Alliance which won 3.63% of the vote. The party continued its participation in the Independent Ecological Alliance during the 2010 regional elections, except notably in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

where it participated in a joint Europe Écologie-MEI list, which later merged with the

Socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

list. Antoine Waechter was elected regional councillor for the

Haut-Rhin Haut-Rhin (); Alsatian: ''Owerelsàss'' or '; , . is a department in the Grand Est region, France, bordering both Germany and Switzerland. It is named after the river Rhine; its name means Upper Rhine. Haut-Rhin is the smaller and less pop ...

and the party received 2 other regional councillors across France.

References

External links

*
Official web site
*
MEI election results as of September 2007
Green political parties in France Political parties established in 1994 *Main 1994 establishments in France Centrist parties in France Green liberalism {{france-party-stub