`Red' Danny gets Green light to contest Euro poll

Just when French politics was beginning to look as grey as the onset of winter, the man whom Gen de Gaulle called "the troublemaker" has returned to liven things up.

Mr Daniel Cohn-Bendit (53) has been officially designated to head the French Greens' list in the June 13th, 1999, European parliamentary elections. Although he is a German citizen and has served as a German member of the European Parliament since 1994, the Maastricht Treaty allows EU citizens to stand for European elections anywhere in the EU.

If, as appears almost certain, Mr Cohn-Bendit wins a French seat in the Strasbourg assembly next June, he will be the first European deputy to be elected from different countries for successive five-year terms. It seems an appropriate fate for the son of German Jewish parents who moved to France to escape the Nazis.

A generation of middle-aged French people remember Mr Cohn-Bendit as "Danny the Red", the leader of the student revolt of May 1968. Gen de Gaulle banished him from France - the country of his birth - for 10 years. It all worked out for the best, Mr Cohn-Bendit says now.

"I'm lucky to have been expelled in '68," he told Le Monde. "Otherwise I would have looked for a place to go - who were the most powerful - the Trots, the Maoists, the anarchists . . . I was expelled before I became ridiculous, like a sort of Jim Morrison in full glory."

Mr Cohn-Bendit's return as "Danny the Green" is an unsettling proposition for many of his comrades in France's ruling "pink-red-green" coalition. He passionately advocates European federalism, as well as the legalisation of cannabis. The media love him, and middle age has not faded his trademark red hair and mischievous blue eyes. By contrast, the right-wing Figaro says, "other candidates, these `Europeans in spite of themselves' as he calls them, will look so drab, so dull".

For this very reason, the French Greens at first hesitated to entrust their European list to Mr Cohn-Bendit. The party's leader, the Environment Minister, Ms Dominique Voynet, last August called him "a free electron" and said she wanted to tell him: "Put yourself at the service of the Greens and learn to say `we' instead of `I'. "

In his speech to the French Greens' congress at the weekend, Mr Cohn-Bendit managed to offend the party's Socialist and Communist coalition partners. He linked the betes noires of the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin - the 2002 presidential election and immigration policy - in the same breath.

"It appears that the Prime Minister is so busy governing that he isn't thinking about the presidential election," Mr Cohn-Bendit said. "Well I'm thinking about it. I want Lionel Jospin to win. So I'd like to appeal to the friends of Lionel Jospin - explain to him that the greatness of a politician is knowing how to unblock a situation."

Mr Cohn-Bendit appealed for residence papers for all 140,000 sans-papiers who have applied. The Jospin government refuses to accept more than 80,000 applicants.

The Green candidate has also angered France's antiquated Communist party by predicting the Greens will surpass it in the European poll. After offering an olive branch to the Communist leader, Mr Robert Hue, in the form of a luncheon invitation, Mr Cohn-Bendit couldn't resist a few jibes at the Greens' congress.

"I'm proud I was anti-communist when they were Stalinists who beat us up and defended the Gulag," he said. "But I know how to read history. I know the Berlin Wall has fallen. I know that Robert Hue is not (his predecessor) Georges Marchais."