a “punch” to a policeman in the middle of a strike, a complaint filed

COQUEREL. A police officer filed a complaint against the deputy LFI Eric Coquerel for violence, this Monday, March 20. He accuses him of having punched him on the sidelines of a strike…

Eric Coquerel again in turmoil? According to a journalist from BFMTV, the deputy LFI, president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, is under the influence of a complaint from a police officer for “violence on a person holding public authority”. The thirty-year-old policeman accuses the elected official of having hit him in the face “with the back of his closed fist” and with “the help of his knuckles”, this Monday morning, around 7:30 a.m., on the Veolia site in Aubervilliers (93). The police were mobilized to unblock a garbage truck depot, while Eric Coquerel was on site to support the strikers, says Mélanie Bertrand on his Twitter account.

Eric Coquerel would have touched the left cheekbone of the agent, whose ITT would be less than eight days. The deputy of Nupes would have defended himself from any desire to strike, believing that he was going to “fall” when the shot went off. Asked by the news channel, Eric Coquerel’s entourage quickly retorted that “the facts are exaggerated”.

A denial and the support of Mélenchon

Eric Coquerel himself formally denies any violence and evokes in a press release published this Monday afternoon “police officers strongly pushing back the demonstrators”, a “charge such as it generated a strong stampede, during which [il a] almost fell several times”. “I learned with amazement that a police officer had filed a complaint against me for willful violence. I formally deny these accusations”, writes the chosen one.

Eric Coquerel was defended by Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Twitter in stride. “A provocative policeman accuses @ericcoquerel
to hit him. Right after, he turned into a blue dragon. By dint of smoking tear gas this policeman damaged himself”, mocks the founder of LFI on his account, relaying the press release from his right arm.

The Bobigny prosecution, for its part, opened an investigation by the head of “willful violence against a person holding public authority”, entrusted to the territorial security.

This is not the first complaint against Eric Coquerel. The LFI deputy was the subject of a resounding complaint for “sexual harassment” last summer, barely appointed head of the Finance Committee. Figure of La France insoumise, Eric Coquerel had been formally accused on July 4, 2022 by the activist and former figure of the “yellow vests” Sophie Tissier, at the police station in Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), south of Paris. An action following a first report made to LFI’s sexual violence monitoring committee which provoked numerous calls for resignation.

The investigation opened for “sexual assault and harassment” had been closed on February 10, for “insufficiently characterized offense”, indicated AFP citing a source familiar with the matter, in this case the Paris prosecutor’s office. Sophie Tissier denounced an attitude that Éric Coquerel would have had against her, during an evening in 2014, evoking a “stalker with sticky wandering hands” and “inappropriate attacks in 2014”.

As of Thursday June 30, 2022, Éric Coquerel, freshly elected president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, had been the subject of accusations of sexual violence on RTL, professed by the activist Rokhaya Diallo, columnist and activist, founder of the anti-racist association Les Indivisibles.

The activist had relayed on the air statements directly implicating the elected official because of his behavior with women. “I have several sources within LFI, and I have heard several times, women talking about the behavior he (Éric Coquerel, ND) would have with women. These are things that have come up repeatedly for several years. I am aware that these are accusations. […] I’ve been hearing things for a long time. Internally, at LFI, I have several women who told me about it,” she said.

What was Eric Coquerel’s defense against the charges?

Explicitly questioned, Eric Coquerel had finally reacted in a forum at the Sunday newspaper on July 3, just before the complaint was filed. “How to react to a rumor that is not based on any complaint, no report to the internal unit of LFI, despite frequent calls and press releases from LFI to be able to do so, no public testimony, no results of serious journalistic investigation in addition five years?”, he had pointed out in particular.

The deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis had claimed never to have “exerted physical or psychological violence or coercion to obtain a report” and, above all, not to have had “criminal behavior in the field of sexist and sexual violence”.

With 21 votes collected, the LFI deputy obtained on June 30, 2022 the head of the coveted Finance Committee of the Palais-Bourbon hemicycle. In a decisive third round by relative majority, he beat the RN candidate, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who only obtained 11 votes, as well as the LR Véronique Louwagie, who collected 9. He now heads this commission, which has a very strategic role in examining budgets before they arrive at the Assembly. A major post won therefore… But after long negotiations, three suspensions of the session and three ballots.

In fact, since 2007, only a deputy who does not belong to the majority can carry out this mission of control, as specified in article 39 of the rules of the Assembly: “cannot be elected to the chairmanship of the Committee on Finance, general economy and budgetary control than a deputy belonging to a group that has declared itself to be in opposition”.

Éric Coquerel took his first steps in politics at the age of 14, taking part in demonstrations against the Debré law. First claiming to be anarchist, he joined the Revolutionary Communist League in 1983. A graduate of the University of Paris-Diderot, he landed a job as a communicator, before getting more involved in politics by changing his sensitivity. ideological: in 1998, he left the Revolutionary Communist League which had become closer to the Lutte Ouvrière party.

He then opted for the Republican and Citizen Movement in 2003 – whose line is so-called left-wing Gaullism and moderate protectionism – and very quickly became an important member (he was one of the four national secretaries). But his political aspiration differs a little from this movement and, in June of the same year, he leaves it to found his own: the Movement for a Republican and Social Alternative. In 2007, he founded, with other personalities from the French left such as Clémentine Autain and Marc Dolez, the Now Left club, which advocates a gathering of the anti-liberal left.

His political commitment intensified when, in 2008, he took full part in the founding of the Left Party, whose orientation was socialist, ecologist and republican. It was launched by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marc Dolez after their departure from the Socialist Party. Éric Coquerel becomes the national secretary for external and unitary relations.

Éric Coquerel went to the polls for the first time in 2010, when he was elected regional councilor for Ile-de-France under the leadership of the Left Front and alternatives. Close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he was his “special adviser” during the presidential campaign of 2012. Militant at that time for social causes, such as the fight against the evacuations of illegal immigrants, he became coordinator of the general secretariat of the Left Party in 2015. When Jean-Luc Mélenchon founded La France insoumise in 2016, Éric Coquerel decided to wear the colors of the new party in the legislative elections.

Éric Coquerel embarked on the race for the legislature in 2017. He then competed for the deputation in the 1st constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis: he won in the second round with 51.72% of the votes against LREM Sébastien Ménard who nevertheless left favorite. A very active Member of Parliament, he appears, after six months, in second position in the ranking of attendance and activity of Members established by Capital.

In fact, between October 2018 and July 2019, Éric Coquerel will have tabled 11 bills: Mediapart reveals at this time that he was the 6th most active deputy in the entire hemicycle during this period. The standout positions and initiatives of his mandate were the co-signature of a bill relating to euthanasia and assisted suicide for a dignified end of life, a co-signature calling for the banning of glyphosate in January 2019, another on the generalization of the teaching of issues related to the preservation of biological diversity and climate change within the framework of planetary limits in October 2019. More recently, he was the author of a bill relating to the legalization of the production, sale and consumption of cannabis under state control in January 2022.

Éric Coquerel represented himself in Seine-Saint-Denis for the legislative elections of 2022, this time under the banner of Nupes, the intergroup which brings together left-wing parties. Collecting more than 50% of the votes in the first round, he obtained one of the best national scores of his party. Also active in committees related to finance and budgetary control, since he was a member of the standing committee on “Finance, general economy and budgetary control”, member of the parliamentary information mission relating to the implementation of the organic law on finance laws and member of the parliamentary mission of evaluation and control of the finance commission, he embarked on this new mandate with, among other things, the objective of running for the post of the presidency of the finance committee. He was elected on June 30, 2022.