The success of Europe Ecologie in France and moderate advances elsewhere in the June European elections have emboldened the green right but disaster in Ireland, where the party was wiped out - and to a lesser extent in the Czech Republic - shows what happens when they abandon their principles for a shot at the big league.

Since the France's Europe Ecologie triumph in the European elections, the European media have been talking of a Green wave across the continent, with leading member Daniel Cohn-Bendit's gurning visage nigh on inescapable.

But the effervescent Cohn-Bendit has every right to be in an especially jolly mood - the result was indeed truly spectacular. It saw them soaring from the 7.45 per cent of the French vote in the 2004 EU elections and their embarrassing 1.57 per cent in the 2007 presidential elections.

Cohn-Bendit christened the night 'the D-Day of ecological politics', leftwing daily Liberation called the result an 'earthquake' and saluted the victory of Cohn-Bendit's green dream team alliance - bringing together the former soixante-huitard with, among others, alter-globalisation's most famous farmer, José Bové. As well as crusading anti-corruption judge Eva Joly and the ex-chief of Greenpeace France, Yannick Jadot. Meanwhile, the Socialists abjectly conceded that the Greens had tapped into something profound among French voters that their own party had entirely missed.