SUMMARY
The aim of this national survey is to analyze the perception, commitment and needs of local elected officials with regard to energy and climate issues in the run-up to the 2026 municipal elections. It combines a qualitative phase (109 semi-structured interviews) and a quantitative phase (2,916 complete responses, including 950 mayors), with statistical adjustment for municipal size.
The consultation reveals a municipal landscape largely favorable to accelerating the energy and climate transition. The key issue is not social acceptability or political opposition, but the operational capacity of local authorities. The need for local engineering and the stabilization of regulatory frameworks and funding are obstacles to the implementation of the transition at local level. The survey highlights a lack of communication (and even an asymmetry of information) between elected representatives and citizens, as well as a lack of evaluation of the schemes.
In the medium term, the success of the local transition will depend less on declared political will than on local authorities' capacity for organizational transformation and multi-level articulation (State, regions, départements, intercommunalités, communes).
Keywords: social acceptability, climate adaptation, institutional capacities, climate change, elected municipal officials, local governance, territorial engineering, quality of life, resilience, local resources, energy sobriety, energy transition.
Illustration: ©The Shift Project
- Lesson #1: There's no such thing as "ecological backlash" among local councillors. Energy and climate transition is a central concern for them, and is seen as a priority issue for the next term of office.
- Lesson #2: Commitment to the transition transcends partisan preferences, among elected representatives from both urban and rural areas.
- Lesson #3: Local elected representatives act first and foremost out of pragmatism, for concrete reasons of quality of life, health and purchasing power.
- Lesson #4: The real obstacle is not ideological or electoral, but operational and capacity-related, and is exacerbated by regulatory instability.
- Lesson #5: Elected representatives are eager to do more: training and engineering are the first needs identified to accelerate their commitment.
- Lesson #6: There is still a need for dialogue and mutual understanding between elected representatives and their constituents.
89% of respondents believe that the energy and climate change transition should be one of the priorities of the next President of the Republic.
