Four candidates rush towards an undecided environmentalist primary

Published on : 07/12/2021 – 4:16 PM

The deputy Delphine Batho, the MEP Yannick Jadot, the mayor of Grenoble Éric Piolle and the former number 2 of the party Sandrine Rousseau officially launched, Monday, July 12, in the indecisive battle of the ecological primary of September.

The environmentalist family organized a press conference at the L’Européen brewery, in Paris, in order to present the four candidates who received the 28 necessary supports, out of 219 godfathers and godmothers distributed among the five formations (EELV, Générations, Mouvement des progressistes, Generation Ecology, Independent Ecologist Alliance).

In a warm atmosphere, under a subdued light and between walls lined with mirrors, one of the organizers, Hélène Hardy, estimated that the primary would be “the event of the start of the school year”. The first round will be held from September 16 to 19 and the second from September 25 to 28. Two public debates minimum will constitute the highlights.

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While the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon is already a candidate for the 2022 presidential election and that the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo – who gathers his support in Villeurbanne on Monday – has ruled out the idea of ​​a socialist primary, environmentalists have praised their choice.

“We are the only ones to be clear about the presidential election, with a transparent, open, democratic process, so that everyone can navigate,” said Hélène Hardy.

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Environmentalists, however, face the challenge of participating in a campaign limited to the summer. Éric Piolle has also recognized that the figure of two million voters, reached by the Socialist Party in 2017, was difficult to achieve with the option of digital voting, the party also not having “the strength (financial and activist ) organize a physical vote “.

Beyond their differences, the four competitors were therefore there Monday morning for “all together, call on the French to register massively in order to give ecology the impetus it needs to win the presidential election”, launched Delphine Batho.

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If the polls do not place any of the left candidates tested by the studies in a position to qualify for the second round of the presidential election, the primary will be tasked with saying that “no, the environmental left is not dead”, argued Sandrine Rousseau. “Everything does not play out in the voting booth in April 2022 between Macron and Le Pen”.

Sitting side by side, the four candidates remained courteous. Sandrine Rousseau still wanted to assert her singularity: “Economist, teacher, feminist, I carry an ecology for all, which embodies social and societal movements”.

Declared last fall, the former deputy national secretary of EELV had left political life after the accusations of sexual assault that she had formulated, with other women, against Senator Denis Baupin. She hopes to shake up the duel announced between Yannick Jadot and Éric Piolle.

“The ecological family is united”

Head of the list for the successful Europeans of 2019, Yannick Jadot enjoys, according to surveys, the widest notoriety, tracing the path of an ecology securing the support of entrepreneurs. Éric Piolle, for his part, is counting on the experience of the twice victorious rally that he has operated in Grenoble with all the forces of the left, which he calls “humanist arc”.

Insisting on the social dimension, he also took care not to pass only for the darling candidate of the activists of always: “I have never set foot in a federal council of EELV, never signed a motion of my life” .

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Yannick Jadot has taken the opposite course in recent months: sometimes criticized for his distance from the identity of the party and the left, he organized a meeting of the left in April, or even participated in the federal council of EELV on Saturday. “The ecological family is united, there is no doubt and I am proud to be part of it,” he said, referring to “his loyalty since 1999”.

As for Delphine Batho, advocate of “degrowth”, she hoped that the primary is not in fact “reserved for party members”, aware that the militant base of EELV or even of Generations will not be primarily focused on she, a former socialist who does not want alliances on the left.

With AFP