Some winegrowers launched to the two members of Europe Ecologie Les Verts, who were to meet local activists in a domain: “Go make the slutty soup.”
The national secretary of Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), Marine Tondelier, and the EELV deputy Sandrine Rousseau, were taken to task and insulted, Monday, June 12, by angry winegrowers in the Aude. On videos posted on their Twitter accounts, and as confirmed to AFP by the two environmental representatives, they had to face winegrowers who wanted to prevent them from accessing a winery where they were to meet local activists. on Monday evening.
While road access to the estate was hampered by tractors, the two women wanted to join it on foot and were insulted by some winegrowers. “Go make the soup bitch, fat bitch”, can we for example clearly hear on one of the extracts broadcast by the two figures of EELV. Protected by the gendarmes, the two women finally reached the wine estate by cutting across the fields.
A planned complaint
“I have no problem with the fact that it is sometimes lively, that sometimes you get a little shaken up, sometimes you also have to shake people up”, reacted Marine Tondelier, interviewed by AFP. “The difference, she added, it’s that we always do it with our values, that is to say never insult, never physically hinder and then respect and listen”. “As a woman, I constantly encourages women to file a complaint when they are insulted and therefore as a party leader, I can not not do it myself”, said Marine Tondelier. She also added that she has not yet made a final decision on this subject: “My goal is not to add difficulties to this gentleman who surely already has a lot in life.”
The two deputies received the support of the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu. On his Twitter account, he wrote: “Always exchange, confront your ideas yes, on the other hand violence has no place in democracy.” The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure also described on Twitter as“inadmissible” THE “sexist insults” aimed at the two women.
“It was not the direction that we wanted it to take”
One of the farmers present on Monday evening contacted AFP to deplore “entirely the remarks that were made yesterday”. “It was not the direction that we wanted it to take”, said Pierre Calmettes, a farmer in Alzonne, referring to the insults. “If there’s a job that knows how to adapt, it’s ours, we only do that, constantly. I started out, I was doing vines, durum wheat, sunflower, now, on the part cereal, I have 13 crops, if that’s not questioning myself, I don’t know what it’s called”he explained.
“All this for the same salary as 15 years ago. My two employees earn more than me, I don’t regret it, I chose it but we can’t live this every day and turn on the TV and hear agribashing all the time, the words they say are too harsh”, continued Pierre Calmettes. Asked by AFP, the president of the Syndicat des vignerons de l’Aude, Frédéric Rouanet, said: “We can’t condone but I can only understand” this action. He clarified that she had been “carried out outside the union”.