Policy. Monique Barbut will resign: the predictable departure of an uncontrollable Minister of Ecological Transition
Little audible for eight months, the Minister of Ecological Transition Monique Barbut will present her resignation from the government by the council of ministers on Wednesday, at the end of a month of turbulence. Official reason: his opposition to the agricultural emergency law, definitively adopted by Parliament this Tuesday, and supported by his Agriculture counterpart Annie Genevard. Unfamiliar with the press, Barbut had already confided to La Tribune Sunday the reasons for his disagreements. His diary, usually scrupulously updated, already no longer showed an event scheduled for 12:30 p.m. this Tuesday.
Recently, Minister Barbut, 69, had emerged from the quasi-monastic silence that she had imposed on herself since her appointment in October 2025. An assumed silence: she has made it a religion to only speak when, if, to whom, and as she wishes. And on condition of having “something to say”, insists those around him. Monique Barbut, born Benabou on August 22, 1956 in Safi (Morocco), advocates rare discretion in politics. And for good reason: a professional in ecology, she displays no electoral ambition. Often “cash” in small groups, she cultivates the art of discretion. It finally came out of silence during a historic heatwave that occurred in May, followed by another even before the start of summer. Monique Barbut gives an interview to the written press, speaks from the France Inter studio, invites the press during a trip to the Pyrénées-Orientales… and it’s tragedy.
Appointed in the fall of 2025, Monique Barbut had only begun to exist publicly as Minister of Ecological Transition a few weeks before her departure. Photo Sipa/Jeanne Accorsini
A feared negotiator but devoid of any political experience, the minister multiplies the blunders, the poorly crafted formulas, the harsh remarks. At the turn of summer, it announces a third heatwave which would last until mid-July. Certainly, the facts have since almost proven him right, but at the time of his declaration, there was nothing yet to confirm this. Météo-France forecasters themselves immediately denied it, followed by government spokesperson Maud Bregeon. Anecdotal and without immediate consequences, this small discrepancy did not remain isolated. It reveals, above all, the contours of a woman who prefers to manage her media interventions herself – even if it means making mistakes, or even displeasing her.
“Horrified” by the air conditioning “everywhere”
A few days later, another uncontrolled slide: Minister Barbut said she was “horrified” by “the people who say (to her) ‘all we have to do is put the air conditioning everywhere'”, giving the impression of putting animals, crops and forests before people “who are suffocating”, while some die from it. The controversy heats up a little more when we discover that the minister has, in addition to her Parisian apartment and a house in the Loiret, a large villa overlooking the Gulf of Saint-Tropez… with a swimming pool – but without air conditioning.
At the same time, Monique Barbut made a rare trip to Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales. Once again, the controversies follow one another: the press is invited then dismissed, meetings with local officials cancelled, the return by TGV replaced by the plane, the meal on the go by a luxury caterer… It doesn’t matter: the minister assumes – again: “No question of the minister being stuck on a train”, indicates her office – even if her agenda for the next day was empty of any commitment… As with her – very limited – relations with the press: not political for a penny, Monique Barbut doesn’t like to talk about what she doesn’t know, and makes it known. On July 9, again, she canceled a speaking engagement at the last moment due to a “schedule constraint.” She actually decided “not to waste her time on a half-empty room”, according to Opinion.
Logical sequence
Her departure this Tuesday from the government is ultimately only the logical continuation of the state of mind and freedom of thought claimed by this environmental professional, far from any political agenda: executive director of the French Development Agency, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, vice-president of the World Bank… Not accustomed to tongue-in-cheek, public exhibition or swallowing snakes, Monique Barbut has always kept her distance from the political inner circle. Until October 2025 when Emmanuel Macron appointed her, while she chaired WWF France.
Does she guess then that a threat of resignation can be very effective in advancing her ideas? In January, she already threatened to slam the door during a heated discussion on the exploitation of hydrocarbon fields in Guyana. Bet won: Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu agrees with Barbut, inflicting a snub on the Minister of Overseas Territories Naïma Mouchou. The memory of Nicolas Hulot’s thunderous departure, for completely different reasons, is still there…
In recent days, Monique Barbut has once again threatened to resign if the government maintains certain provisions of the agricultural emergency law. In committee, the Macronist elected officials abstained… but the Assembly finally adopted during the night the contested provisions on water retention and acetamiprid, before the Senate this Tuesday, causing the departure of an entire minister and not really motivated by a political career at all costs.
