The Greens (French: Les Verts, IPA: [le vɛʁ]; VEC or LV) was a left-wing to centre-left green-ecologist[1] political party in France.

[2] Since 1974, the environmentalist movement has been a permanent feature of the French political scene, contesting every election: municipal, national & European.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit (or "Danny the Red"), a leader of the 1968 student uprising, spearheaded the party's 1999 European campaign, obtaining 9.7% of votes cast, enough to return seven deputies to Strasbourg.

Lemaire was in turn replaced by Yann Wehrling, who seemingly united a majority of the membership under a text outlining the future direction that the party hoped to pursue.

While the Green's vote share was down from 2002, it won a fourth seat in Nantes where François de Rugy defeated a conservative UMP incumbent.

In the 2009 European Parliament election, the party was an integral part of the Europe Écologie coalition, led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, which gained 8 seats for a total of 14 on a 16.3% of the vote.

[3] The Stephen Roth Institute criticized the Green Party in 2004, calling its record "tainted by abortive attempts to expel from within its ranks notorious anti-Jewish activist Ginette Skandrani herself ethnically Jewish[4] who has close contacts with Holocaust deniers.

"[5] Other critics, such as Roger Cukierman of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions did not attack the party as a whole, but rather its anti-Zionist wing, claiming that it promoted a "brown-green alliance".

[3] Patrick Farbiaz, a Green leader involved in her expulsion, argued that "although she has not written [anti-Semitic texts] herself, she looks like a kingpen of holocaust deniers and avowed antisemites".

[3] The party had previously expelled another co-founder (in 1991), Jean Brière, for signing a text addressing the alleged "war-causing role" of Israel and "the zionist lobby in the Gulf War.

"[3] Green MEP Helene Flautre has attracted controversy by calling for the lifting of sanctions against Turkish Cypriots imposed by the United Nations.

The party's final leadership, led by Cécile Duflot, and including Dominique Voynet, Yves Cochet and Noël Mamère were positioned between the two aforementioned factions.