2023-10-15 21:03:36
Marine Tondelier, national secretary of EELV, greets the public during the launch of the new movement “Les Ecologistes” in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), October 14, 2023. GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP
In Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), in the close suburbs of Paris, it is 4:30 p.m., Saturday October 14, when Marine Tondelier takes the stage of the Cité fertile, a former freight station converted into “third place dedicated to ecological and social transition”. Twenty-four hours after the terrorist crime that occurred in Arras against a high school during which a literature teacher was killed, the national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) chose to maintain the launch of her new movement, the Environmentalists, first step supposed to open the way to a profound transformation of his party.
“The world has never needed politics so much”she justifies, after asking for two minutes of silence, the first for Arras, the second for the Israeli and Palestinian people. “We are the leading party in city centers, but we also want to be the leading party in rural areas”, proclaims the native of Pas-de-Calais, in front of several hundred activists.
While ecology is one of the primary concerns of citizens, only 23% of French people consider EELV capable of governing the country, according to the latest study “French Fractures”, carried out by Ipsos-Sopra Steria for The world. Saturday, between the food stands “homemade”, “locavores” – that is to say based on local products – or those of craft beers, activists and elected officials agree on the loss of attractiveness which is hitting the Greens.
“Simplify the activist journey”
In recent years, the EELV party has regularly found itself at the heart of more or less embarrassing controversies, with the Tour de France judged “macho and polluting” by the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, to the glass Christmas tree of the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, until the invitation to the EELV summer universities, in August, of the rapper Médine, accused of having held an anti-Semitic statement. So many choices which paint the image of a party with assumed radicalism, far removed from the expectations of the middle and working classes.
Read also: The arrival of the rapper Médine eclipses the political return to Europe Ecologie-Les Verts
“We lost the electorate in the suburbs because we failed to explain the link between social justice and environmental justice”laments the former environmentalist candidate in the presidential election Noël Mamère, who recalls that the ” exceeding “ is a « gimmick » for the party founded by René Dumont. “I hope this time will be the right one”adds the former mayor of Bègles (Gironde), warning against “ menace » which weighs on environmentalists. According to the former journalist, the far right is taking over ecology to accentuate the divisions in society, between “urban bobos” et “ruralities”. “We will end up being designated as the cause of all misfortunes”he prophesies.
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