“I expect nothing from Emmanuel Macron and ask nothing of him”said Julien Bayou, national secretary of EELV on franceinfo Sunday April 17. “My vote and that of the ecologists is not worth quitus, it is not worth support”, continues the regional councilor of Île-de-France. Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron sent signals to his left during his meeting on Saturday in Marseille, speaking of the environment as the “fight of the century”.
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Julien Bayou believes that Emmanuel Macron “had five years to act and he did not. He was condemned for climate inaction, so there is no reason to really believe in his promises.” Nevertheless, the secretary general of the Ecologists will vote for Emmanuel Macron: “I’m not doing it for him, but for my country, to safeguard freedoms, to protect our democracy, because the far right is a danger.”
Because despite the first five-year term of Emmanuel Macron marked according to Julien Bayou by “climate inaction and social damage”he recalls that “Faced with a democrat, one can oppose in the polls, in the street” and therefore, in his eyes, the Macron bulletin is “the only tool to protect our democracy”. The elected environmentalist strongly calls for blocking the far right. He sees in the arrival of Marine Le Pen in power “a danger for the rights of women, for workers, for trade unionists, for minorities, for the press, for justice”.
“It’s a democratic reflex, not a voice must be missing against Marine Le Pen.”
Julien Bayou, EELVon franceinfo
To all those who think to abstain, he says he understands “weariness, fatigue, nervousness, anger at being forced into this choice again”but he thinks that “when you give the keys to the far right, it’s very complicated to find them at the ballot box in a democratic way”. Julien Bayou points in particular to the other countries governed by the far right: “Look at what is happening in Brazil for women, trade unionists and minorities, look at what is happening in Hungary: how perfectly justice is obstructed and the last elections confiscated. Imagine the Fifth Republic, with too much power for the president, imagine what that means and decide in conscience.”