For a long time La France Insoumise and Europe Ecologie-Les Verts were seen by many feminists as the political vehicles best placed to push their ideas. Recent cases, and especially the reaction of executives like Jean-Luc Melenchon, have cast doubt: are these parties really feminist? “We wonder“, confirms the head of a collective, who deplores that “Our struggles are well carried only by ourselves”.
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Should we go through the creation of a feminist party? This is a recurring subject on the left. After the failure of Sandrine Rousseau in the environmental primary, the temptation was already present. Feminist parties have existed in Belgium since the 1970s, in Sweden and recently in Spain. But in France, there are only associative movements. Could the more radical eco-feminism attract a new electorate? To come together, feminism would have to remove several obstacles that prevent it from becoming an independent political force.
First obstacle, the ideological definition. Is there only one feminism? The historian Florence Montreynaud explains it very well: “The feminist landscape is fragmented“This historical activist describes three insurmountable divisions: prostitution, the veil, transsexuals. On these three points… feminist currents clash, sometimes violently. This explains in particular why Sandrine Rousseau was hissed on Sunday during a demonstration of support for Iranian women.She is sometimes considered complacent with the Islamists on the issue of the veil in France.
Another obstacle: mistrust of the devices. “Parties are patriarchal and violent structures“, deplores an association leader. Power struggles too often result in reducing the role of women. But that does not prevent some activists from wanting to stay there:”Without internal balance of power, nothing will change“, thus claims the Parisian ecologist Raphaëlle Remy-Leleu, determined to push the questions of equality within EELV.
A desire for entryism which does not only make people happy. Among the Greens, some executives would almost welcome a split: “They use ecology as a cuckoo clock“, annoys a member of the Federal Council. The congress scheduled for December could clarify the line and depending on the results, revive the desire for independence of eco-feminists.