It’s almost 9:30 p.m. this Saturday, December 2 at the Élysée Montmartre. In the pit of this concert hall formerly hosted by David Bowie, NTM, and Daft Punk, the audience is still exhilarated by this collective “Booty therapy” session. Some gather in front of the refreshment bar to quench their thirst with large gulps of IPA beer. It is at this moment that Marie Toussaint takes the floor and, from the start of her speech, fires her first cartridge. Who does she have in her sights: Jordan Bardella? No, this one is only mentioned later: the first candidate mentioned by name is none other than the boss of the Hunters’ Federation. “In France, Willy Schraen, the man who likes to kill, backed by Thierry Coste, the man who likes to bring down environmentalists and who boasts of being Emmanuel Macron’s rural advisor, is already fomenting a list. They are say the defenders of rurality. I tell them little. Let’s open the debate publicly on the rural world.” The strategy is clear, ideologically understandable. Politically, more surprising, as the candidate is credited with 8% of the votes, compared to 1% for her chosen opponent.
Three days later, Willy Schraen summons the press to announce that his list will compete in the European elections. The location was not chosen at random: it was at the Embassy of Auvergne, a Parisian address with a wooded interior, promoting local food, that supporters in ribbed rider-style jackets gathered around 11 a.m. , and journalists. The glasses of wine – white and red – multiply, and the plates of aligot accompanied by Parlan sausages are swallowed in one gulp. “It’s not a buffet for veggies!”, quips one participant. “Rurality is not a geographical point but a DNA. We are not the bastards they say because we like aperitifs, pork and barbecues”, solemnly declares Willy Schraen, denouncing elites “under the influence of political ecology”. Between the Ecologists and the Alliance for Rurality, the horn has just sounded: the hunting party can begin.
“Happy rurality” versus… “rurality of happy people”
At the beginning of last week, in the Quatre-Colonnes room of the National Assembly, Julien Bayou, environmentalist deputy from Paris, was already taking care to artificially set up the confrontation. “There will be a funny game between us and the ‘hunters’ list’ for this European election. It defends the living, while the latter fight to be able to hunt drunk on Sundays: through this, there will be a debate around of rurality.” “This is where the match will be played for them, it is their glue, confirms a strategist of the Marie Toussaint campaign. And we are ready to play it, we announce it right away: we will not let ourselves dispossess the question of rurality.”
Because for several years, Les Écologists have been striving to be heard in rural areas. From October 6 to 8, the MP for Drôme and native of the department, Marie Pochon, organized the Ecologist Rural Universities at the foot of the Vercors cliffs, to try to attract a rural electorate. “A real turning point”, according to training executives. “There is no subject, of course that the territorial divide is a reality, assures Marie Pochon. But we must not play on this rural versus urban eco-friendly divide. We must allow a happy rurality: these territories also suffer from severe droughts and other climatic upheavals. Willy Schraen essentializes and miserabilises people whom he would like to put under cover by pretending to save them from the terrible ecology.”
At the Auvergne Embassy, the good-natured atmosphere remains tinged with pathos: the Rural Alliance has designated its enemy. To hear the words of the candidates on the list of the former boss of the National Federation of Hunters, their misfortunes are, in large part, due to environmentalists. “We are happy people who just want to stay that way, provided that we stop annoying us a little more every day,” says the latter. “When I was a kid, my only concern was knowing where my father was going to take me fishing. My only fear today is knowing if I would have the right to go fishing with my children, proclaims his running mate Jérémy Grandière , president of the Ille-et-Vilaine Fishing Federation, his eyes misty. This green ideological dictatorship is attacking different rural actors, we must join forces.” Camille Hoteman, elected 24th queen of Arles, also present on the list, deplores “the attacks from all sides by animalists to stop bullfighting”. The ecologists ? Liberticide. And disconnected. Willy Schraen retorts: “We are eco-friendly ourselves, I would like us to give lessons from a Parisian living room facing the Eiffel Tower… Around me, there are people who have mud on their feet, maybe -maybe they haven’t all read books, but they know what ecology is.” To hear him say, the Greens would be, as a bonus, contemptuous: “They should talk to us, rather than calling us jerks.”
The risk of the “dwarf match”
Accused of Elysian remote control by a good number of political adversaries, the Rural Alliance, to emerge on the political scene, found its opposite. Because what could be better than a counter-model to increase interest in your campaign, direct the political agenda, polarize the issues and the choice of voters, and ultimately unfold his story? “There is a real battle of world vision between Willy Schraen and the Greens: they are our main adversaries,” explains Thierry Coste, lobbyist and shadow man of the boss of the hunters’ list. Because this is how the latter was designed. “It is inspired by the BBB, the Dutch farmer-citizen movement, which stood against punitive ecology,” explains Schraen’s former traveling companion and former LREM deputy Jean-Baptiste Moreau.
The fact remains that the operation promises to be delicate for Marie Toussaint and her running mates. Main target of Willy Schraen, how will the MEP respond to the incessant trials to come, without getting locked into a debate between small candidates? His strategists imagine him to be a judoka: “It’s not a dwarf match, it’s a thematic match. If there is a real controversy between the hunters and the ecologists, it will force the others to take a position”, anticipates the one of his relatives. Benoît Biteau, MEP number 6 on the Ecologists list, farmer and former hunter, agrees: “He demonizes us 365 days a year; we will repeat for 365 days that Willy Schraen’s project is nothing but a vast imposture.” A green local elected official is concerned about this strategy. “We have no interest in getting into this game which degrades us: we are talking with Macron! And then it will hurt us, since we will respond in a caricatured way, and it will create bad buzz.”
At the end of the press conference, Thierry Coste’s eyes brightened at the memory of the time when he advised Jean Saint-Josse, president of the former Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions party (CPNT, now Le Mouvement de la Ruralité). ). “I used to say that Dominique Voynet, former Minister of the Environment under Lionel Jospin, was our best press secretary. As soon as she hit us, and particularly during the big hunters’ demonstration in 1998, It gave us the opportunity to express ourselves and exist.” The following year, the movement collected 6.77% of the votes cast, and won six seats. Willy Schraen’s dream.
.