The Greens (French: Les Verts [le vɛʁ], LV; also Les Verts, Confédération écologiste – Parti écologiste, VEC) was a centre-left to left-wing green-ecologist political party in France. The Greens had been in existence since 1984, but their spiritual roots could be traced as far back as René Dumont's candidacy for the presidency in 1974. On 13 November 2010, The Greens merged with Europe Ecology to become Europe Ecology – The Greens.

Historically the environmental movement in France primarily focused on nature conservation, rather than more fundamental ecological questions, with their political priorities being the creation of nature reserves and the regulation of shooting. This began to change in the late 1960s, with environmentalists becoming more politicised by the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967 which resulted in crude oil covering beaches and sea birds on the coast of Brittany, and the government's approval of proposals from the private sector to commercially develop the Vanoise National Park in 1968, which led to environmental groups joining forces to successfully oppose the plans. This politicisation led to a split in the environmental movement in the early 1970s, with more traditional conservationists continuing to concentrate on habitat protection, often at a local level, whilst political ecologists advocated for changes in government policy to create a more ecologically sustainable society. This was reflected in environmental groups' stances with regard to the extensive French nuclear power programme, with conservationists maintaining an agnostic position whilst political ecologists participated in the country's anti-nuclear movement, including actions such as the July 1977 protests at the Superphénix reactor.

Since 1974, the environmentalist movement has been a permanent feature of the French political scene, contesting every election: municipal, national & European. However, the birth of the green electoral movement can be traced to the 1973 French legislative election, when Ecologie et Survie was founded in Alsace at the home of the anti-nuclear activist Solange Fernex, with another activist who would become a prominent member of the green movement, Antoine Waechter, also in attendance. The party ran Henri Jenn as a candidate for the National Assembly in those elections, achieving 3.7 percent of the vote. Ecologie et Survie would also be involved in Dumont's 1974 presidential campaign, alongside the French section of Friends of the Earth and journalists including Jean Carlier. Dumont won 336,114 votes, or 1.3 percent of the total.

In the years following Dumont's challenge for the presidency, and prior to the formal confirmation of les Verts as political party, environmentalists contested elections under such banners as Ecology 78, Ecology Europe and Ecology Today. In 1976 some environmentalist candidates in Alsace secured over 10 percent of the vote in that year's cantonal elections, whilst Paris-Ecologie ran Friends of the Earth spokesman Brice Lalonde in a by-election to the National Assembly in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, with Dumont as substitute. He achieved 6.5 percent of the vote on a platform of improving quality of life, ending nuclear power, shortening the working week, political decentralisation and use of popular initiatives.

The following year an ecological electoral coalition was formed to contest municipal elections, led by Friends of the Earth, Mouvement Ecologique (which was founded out of Dumont's presidential campaign and brought together local groups including Ecologie et Survie) and SOS-Environnement (an alliance of conservationists, transport users and the disabled which combined direct action which electoral activity). The alliance's platform built on that advocated by Lalonde the previous year. The coalition scored an average of 10.13 percent across Paris, with over 13 percent in the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements of Paris, and consistently above five percent in provincial France, with about 30 councillors being elected. However, disagreements between the groups involved and between those in Paris and elsewhere in France led to the alliance's breakup, with Philippe Lebreton founding Ecologie 1978 in Lyon to contest the 1978 French legislative election alongside SOS-Environnement but with opposition from Friends of the Earth. Ecologie 1978 won 499,792 votes, an average of 4.4 percent per candidate. In 1979, Fernex led the Europe-Ecologie list for the first democratic elections to the European Parliament. Despite Friends of the Earth not participating in the list, it scored 4.7 percent of the vote and 888,134 votes in total - the highest proportion of the vote achieved by any green party in the election, with 10.6 percent being achieved in Fernex's home department of Haut-Rhin.

Lalonde was selected as the ecological candidate for the 1981 French presidential election under the "Aujourd'hui Ecologie" banner, however this was controversial, with Lebreton being the only other candidate allowed to stand for the nomination. This was felt by some activists to be undemocratic, who made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Jacques Cousteau to run as the ecologist candidate. Lalonde won 3.9 percent of the vote and 1,122,445 votes in total: whilst the green vote increased nationwide, it dropped in some of the movement's early strongholds, including Paris, Alsace and Manche. The end of the campaign also saw discord over allegations involving Lalonde and financial irregularities which led to a court case. In the subsequent legislative election the same year, "Aujourd'hui Ecologie" won 157,037 votes across 81 constituencies, an average of 3.6 percent for each candidate.

This period saw moves being made towards establishing a united green party, with Les Verts - Confédération Ecologiste being founded in December 1981 by members of Friends of the Earth and local groups, and Les Verts - Parti Ecologiste established in November 1982 out of the remains of Mouvement Ecologique. In the 1983 French municipal elections, 550 seats were won by ecologist candidates. Negotiations on the merger of the two green groups were triggered by the two parties holding conferences about 40 km away from each other simultaneously in November 1983, with Les Verts being established as a unified party at the end of February 1984 at a meeting in Clichy, in time for the 1984 European Parliament election.

The Greens' Europe-Ecologie list was led by anti-nuclear activist Didier Anger, and opinion polls in early 1984 indicated support of around six percent, above the electoral threshold of five percent which would not only lead to about four MEPs being elected but also the reimbursement of their election expenses. Based on this the party borrowed heavily to finance the campaign, including from the German Greens and both Belgian Green parties, Agalev and Ecolo. However, Europe-Ecologie suffered due to the entry of a rival list, Entente Radicale Ecologiste, featuring former centre-right politician Olivier Stirn, Left Radical François Doubin, and Lalonde. This was the initiative of Left Radical leader Jean-Michel Baylet, with the blessing of his ally, Socialist president François Mitterrand. Lalonde had previously offered to head the Europe-Ecologie list on the condition that the party abandon the policy of immediate unilateral nuclear disarmament, which was rejected. Europe-Ecologie's poll numbers immediately dipped upon the announcement of the rival list and they only scored 3.31 percent and 664,403 votes.