2023-08-08 05:00:06
Marie Toussaint, MEP, in Nantes, June 24, 2021. SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS / AFP
Calm, serious, Marie Toussaint is not the type to talk about herself, nor to pour herself out. Behind her curly bangs, her big glasses, and her irremovable smile, she cultivates a violet discretion. At 36, the future head of the list of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) in the European elections of June 2024 does not deviate from her « combats » always : “the protection of life and that of social justice”, she explains seated in a café opposite the Gare du Nord in Paris. On this summer afternoon, here she is arriving from Brussels. She has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019.
On July 10, to everyone’s surprise, environmental activists chose her to lead the next European campaign, to the detriment of the former national secretary of the Greens David Cormand, who dropped to second place on the list. Handsome player, this thinking head of the party admits ” a little disappointed “, but is full of praise for this “very strong candidate”, “hardworking”, “liaison with NGOs”. “She was favorite. She is very much in line with the climate generation, the NGOs…”, he assures. For her part, the new elected greets this number two with whom she will campaign, and to which “the party owes a lot”.
A major challenge awaits Ms. Toussaint. For months, the “rebellious” have been pushing for the constitution of a single list of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes). In June, the coordinator of La France insoumise (LFI) and first lieutenant of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Manuel Bompard, had lunch with the national secretary of EELV, Marine Tondelier. He promised her that he would continue until the last day this strategy of energizing which earned the green leader heavy attacks from the movement of Mr. Mélenchon.
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“My weapon is the law”
This pressure now risks weighing on Marie Toussaint, notoriously more favorable to the Nupes, and whose appointment was perceived as ” a signal ” by LFI. The “rebellious” pretend not to see the last vote of environmental activists: 86%, they confirmed, in July, their strategy of an independent list. Faced with the fight ahead, Ms. Toussaint will have to transform herself, abandon her technocratic language and outline a political vision. For the moment, it is reluctant to impose itself and to leave programmatic language elements. “She must seize this opportunity to show what she has in her stomach”, assures the former tutelary figure of the Greens, Noël Mamère. who adds: “Marie Toussaint’s handicap is that she stayed too far behind. »
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