One minute to wrap up. Marie Toussaint takes advantage of the additional time of this second European debate on Wednesday April 10 to recall some of the ecologists’ feats of arms. “Over the past few years, Environmentalists have fought for you,” asserts the head of the list, facing the camera. The formula makes you smile… Because at the same time, far from the spotlight, the executives and activists of the green family are tearing each other apart with interposed emails and invectives in the internal loops. Ten days after the resignation of Julien Bayou, the conditions in which the Paris deputy returned his card sparked an outcry behind the scenes. A disorder, one more, in the middle of the European campaign, which does not help the head of the list Marie Toussaint, already struggling in the polls.
Targeted by a complaint from his ex-partner for “psychological violence”, the former national secretary left his political party on April 2, after learning of the outsourcing by the Green leadership of an investigation targeting him to a law firm. “EELV is preparing to send an email to several tens of thousands of members to invite ‘any person concerned’ by alleged inappropriate behavior or comments on my part to testify against me”, he was indignant in his resignation letter.
Her departure made public, the national environmentalist secretary, Marine Tondelier, issued a press release aimed at activists, inviting “people who have not spoken until now” to speak out. And to outline some precautions: “Let us clarify: it is in no way a question of replacing justice, but rather of objectifying or not possible facts that contravene the values and principles of our movement.”
“I no longer want to be a member of this party”
Nothing helps: former EELV deputies, regional advisors, departmental executives express their dissatisfaction in email exchanges revealed by Mariannethat The Express also consulted. “Instead of fighting the other electoral lists and actively campaigning, we are deploying energy to politically and morally destroy a person, already implicated by the justice system,” deplores an activist in one of these texts, who affirms that “nothing is going well in this history” and denounces “a call for denunciation completely against” the national secretary. “I no longer want to be a member of this party. I don’t want to be in solidarity with the decisions that shock me. But if I leave, I tell myself that a whole section of activists who, like me, do not approve all this will no longer be represented,” writes another participant in the loop. An old green oil plus silk: “It seems that many of us are asking ourselves the question of whether to stay or not. So I invite us to stay and say what we think.” A last one has made her decision: “I am definitely moving away from this party. I wonder who still wants to vote for it.”
The only one to speak about the main person concerned, the local section of Clichy denounced the modus operandi of the party, “contradictory with respect for the rule of law and could be similar to the establishment of a ‘people’s court’ and parallel justice.” The Bayou case is otherwise never mentioned openly, but everyone knows that it is indeed about him. Here, a text issued by the Franche-Comté section of the Greens and widely distributed to members throughout France, expressing concern about “certain groups constituted [qui] spy, ruminate, manipulate, ostracize, spread rumors based on tiny facts” – without ever naming the catalyst for this indignation. There, another one that looks like a dissertation on the relations between “political ecology and the State of law”, passed under the cloak before wide distribution but whose author, advisor to Paris, claims to be very comfortable with the idea of being perceived as the instigator because his “political career, he says, is very far behind.”
The Bayou subject alone crystallizes a discomfort: to express oneself openly or to remain anonymous, or even to say nothing? Hesitation, a lot of scruples, then discretion is often preferred by the activists and other party executives interviewed, although there are many of them. “No one can say anything, for fear of being called anti-feminist,” summarizes an elected representative from the Ile-de-France region.
Sling
“It’s normal for a party to debate a subject like that,” explains Marine Tondelier. “We spend a lot of time on the phone to answer legitimate questions and explain what we cannot write by email, most of the activists hang up having understood our decision and knowing that we had no choice,” assures the national secretary. “We must maintain reason,” asserts with the faith of the coal-burner those around him who describe a “picrocholine” protest. A situation not so grotesque, since Marine Tondelier sent an email to calm the rebellion two days before the Federal Council which is to be held on Saturday April 13, we learned Politico. The national secretary calls on her people to “measure the difficulty of the sequence” and urges them to “responsibility” and “benevolence”. And Tondelier adds a major clarification: “Do not add any externally.” In short, wash your dirty laundry with your family.
The meeting of the Federal Council promises to be stormy, however, since the assembly of Ecologists will have to, at the same time, validate the final list for the European elections. We will ratify the arrival of Flora Ghebali, ex-macronist, in the list of candidate Marie Toussaint, a poaching which also created a stir within the green party. It will also be a matter of recording the exclusion of Bénédicte Monville, as revealed Release, suspended from the party for having, among other things, increased the outbursts against the European green campaign. “With these European deadlines, the responsibility of executives and activists to put one more coin in the slap machine cannot be neglected,” breathes Nadine Herrati, President of the Federal Council. Two years ago, Marine Tondelier took over the reins of EELV, which today became Les Ecologistes. She then promised to “renovate the party from floor to ceiling”, and to abandon the eternal internal quarrels. Impossible is not green.
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