Founded in 1970, Friends of the Earth-France was one of the most important players of political ecology in the 1970s. Participation in elections and anti-nuclear contestation are two sides of the same thinking about the role of citizens and civil society in solving environmental problems. Friends of the Earth wanted to challenge the authorities in the definition of the environment but they had trouble establishing an organization able to do so. Local groups seldom worked together and there was no effective control on national leaders, which fueled suspicion and tensions. At the beginning of the 1980s, the association adopted more conventional statutes and a definition of the environment similar to that of the public authorities. Thus, after the 1968 years, Friends of the Earth became a sort of French environmental NGO.