This Tuesday, February 7 in the morning, he climbs on the platform of the Maison de Hesse in Brussels. Various left-wing president of the Brittany region, Loïg Chesnais-Girard inspects the seats. His is there, under the green banner of the environmental group of the European Parliament. He’s having fun. He, the social democrat who left the Socialist Party after the birth of the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) and who governs his community with elected Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV) in the opposition.
When he stays in Brussels, French political tensions remain in Rennes. Here, Loïg Chesnais-Girard is an elected official in search of influence. The next afternoon, he will need the support of the Greens to validate his work on CO sequestration2 in soils, carbon farming. A subject unknown to the general public to defend in front of an assembly which is just as much. The European Committee of the Regions is an advisory institution responsible for promoting the interests of local authorities to ministers and European parliamentarians.
Unthinkable for Loïg Chesnais-Girard of ” to fail ” this file which can “transform rapidly and brutally” European agriculture. He is the president of a region of 3.37 million people producing food for 22 million people and where a third of jobs depend on agribusiness. So, Loïg Chesnais-Girard begins a work of “lobbying” : “In Rennes, I don’t use this badly perceived term. In Brussels, he is respectable. Everyone seeks to influence to defend their interests. »
Culture of the network assumed
The city councilor is accustomed to maneuvering out of his bases to defend his region. In December 2022, he visited Japan for the 17e times, just to brag about the ” serious ” Breton with Japanese companies. A few months earlier, he was staying in Ireland and Scotland to talk about offshore wind turbines, university exchanges, ports… Here he is again, today, at the heart of the European institutions which, between 2021 and 2027, will have subsidized more than one billion dollars. euros the peninsula. The elected official manages his interests in the manner of his predecessor at the head of the region, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Pillar of the Hollande and Macron governments from 2012 to 2022, “the Menhir” was nicknamed the “Minister of Brittany” for its propensity to intercede in favor of the West. This lobbying is a habit in Brittany where the culture of the network is assumed and where the circles of influence topped with a gwenn ha du (the Breton flag) are legion.
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