Member of The European Parliament
In 1994 he was elected to the European parliament, though he had been placed only eighth on the electoral list because of his support of military intervention in Bosnia, as German Greens at the time did not support the resumption of German military intervention abroad.
At the European elections in 1999, he re-entered French politics as the leader of the French Green Party (Les Verts) list. He found considerable support in the French media, who often feature him, even when he does not represent or is at odds with the French Green party. He reached 9.72% of votes, a score since then unequalled by the French Greens.
In 2002 he became president of the Green parliamentary group, together with the Italian MEP Monica Frassoni.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s (decade), Cohn-Bendit attracted controversy for his independent views. He was criticised from the political right for being a strong proponent of freer immigration, the legalisation of soft drugs, and the abandonment of nuclear power and from the left for his pro-free market policies, his support for military interventions in Bosnia and Afghanistan and frequent collaboration with centrist personalities (Bernard Kouchner and François Bayrou for instance).
Cohn-Bendit's disregard for conventional European politics of left and right has made him more unpopular in France than in Germany. The French Green Party and the French left in general remain more attached to these distinctions, whereas in the German Green Party, the moderate Realo wing had already won over the hard-line Fundi wing, possible alliances with the Conservatives were no longer taboo, and third way policies under the center-left Gerhard Schröder government, such as Agenda 2010 and the Hartz I – IV laws, found considerable support. He was also accused of not giving to the French party the percentage of income that all MEPs and other elected members are supposed to give to their party, although the party had officially agreed to exempt him before his first election in France. This, alongside his pro-European attitude, led him to participate in the 2004 European elections on the German side, where he became the highest male candidate on the list and was elected again.
In 2009, Cohn-Bendit criticised Pope Benedict XVI over his comment that condoms only make AIDS worse.
In 2010, he was involved in founding JCall, an advocacy group based in Europe to lobby the European parliament on foreign policy issues concerning the Middle East.
Read more about this topic: Daniel Cohn-Bendit
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