There were no surprises. Marine Tondelier was elected, this Saturday, December 10, new national secretary of the Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) party during a congress in Rungis (Val-de-Marne). The summary motion presented by the municipal councilor of Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais), 36, and which brings together her other competitors, including the line of Sandrine Rousseau, was adopted by 90.8% of the votes. of the 400 congress delegates.
It gives him a large majority to “refound” and “massify” the party, weakened by its internal divisions; the pitiful result of their presidential candidate Yannick Jadot; and the Julien Bayou case, accused of psychological violence, to whom Marine Tondelier succeeds. During the first round, on November 26, his motion called “La Suite” won 46.97% of the vote.
“A slow-growing, solid tree”
In the party’s management team since 2013, this football and trail fan was responsible for organizing the summer days. “Tondelier is a slow-growing, solid tree”, which “reassures activists”, depicts MEP David Cormand. “She was close to very exposed personalities, she saw the pitfalls,” he continues. She was notably parliamentary assistant to Cécile Duflot, campaign director for the mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle during the environmental primary, and spokesperson for Yannick Jadot in the presidential election. “We were not prepared enough” for this deadline, recognizes elected, who wants to “give a course, a hope to the militants”.
For Alain Coulombel, member of the left wing of the party, she “will easily be able to lead a team”, but he “does not see (does) not very well what is its political framework” vis-à-vis the left alliance . “The Nupes, I did it on the ground before the Nupes”, answers the new head of EELV, who wants “a continuation” to this alliance, but by reviewing the governance. She also defends an autonomous EELV list for the Europeans of 2024.
Alexis Braud, close to Yannick Jadot, recognizes him “an intimate knowledge of the movement which can allow him to lead changes”, and salutes “his attachment to Hénin-Beaumont”, a former mining town where she is from. It is in this RN city that the ex-student of Sciences Po Lille, specialized in environmental health, cut her teeth, becoming in 2014 elected opposition against mayor Steeve Briois. “She is an incredible fighter, she is undergoing enormous violence there”, notes the deputy Generations Benjamin Lucas. An experience recounted in his book “News from the Front” in 2017.
Marine Tondelier will now leave her post in an environmental agency to devote herself entirely to EELV, whose name she hopes to change.