Hollande resists push to sack two Greens

FRENCH PRESIDENT François Hollande resisted pressure to sack Green Party members of his cabinet yesterday after the junior partner in his governing majority announced it would vote against the EU fiscal treaty.

While the pact is likely to pass through parliament next month with the support of Mr Hollande’s Socialist Party and the mainstream right, the Greens’ open defiance of government policy cast doubts over the future of its two ministers and dealt the government a humiliating setback.

The Greens’ national council at the weekend rejected the pact agreed by EU leaders last March as the wrong response to the union’s problems and called for talks on an undefined “new European agenda” to tackle the crisis.

Although some Green deputies had threatened for weeks to abstain in the vote, the decision stunned even some within the party. Veteran ecologist Daniel Cohn-Bendit called the move “irresponsible and incoherent” and resigned from the party.

The Greens’ decision prompted calls for their two ministers to be sacked, but a spokesman for prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the question did not arise. Socialist figures called on the Greens to fall into line, however, with the government spokeswoman urging the smaller party to “show some coherence and, frankly, solidarity”. While there is little enthusiasm in the Socialist Party for the treaty, it has agreed to approve the text alongside a growth pact agreed by EU leaders in June.

“We don’t like this pact. It is a Sarkozy legacy,” said Élisabeth Guigou, head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “But you don’t have to love a pact to ratify it.”