HÉNIN-BEAUMONT, France — All of the lighting in the city’s streets and buildings is being changed to environmentally friendly LED bulbs. “One more step forward in protecting our biodiversity.”No, the policies are not the work of a tree-hugging City Council dominated by the Greens. They are of France’s far-right National Rally, the party whose longstanding, fierce dedication to a single issue — curbing immigration — helped it become France’s main opposition. Only a few years ago, the party showed little interest in the environment. Its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, denied human-driven climate change and dismissed ecology as the “new religion of the bobo,” or bohemian bourgeois.

Source: New York Times October 17, 2019 16:18 UTC