“Sandrine Rousseau, I don’t introduce her, you all know her.” The announcement of the manager of the Jonas bookshop, in Paris, to introduce the meeting with the deputy Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), co-author of Beyond the Androcene (editions du Seuil), is succinct. No need to say more. The graying wick and the round glasses of the 50-year-old environmentalist are now firmly established in the heart of the French political and media landscape. Sandrine Rousseau does not hide her satisfaction from franceinfo: “Who could have said that we would be here a year ago?”
Propelled to the front of the stage during the environmental primary of September 2021, Sandrine Rousseau has been omnipresent since the end of the summer of 2022. In turn, she sparked a controversy over the link between meat consumption and virility, shocked a part of the political class by defending the “right to laziness” and broke the Julien Bayou affair by claiming, on the set of the program “C à vous” (France 5), that the leader of EELV was responsible for “behavior likely to break the moral health of women”especially towards one of his former companions.
This statement caused a political earthquake on the left and triggered an uninterrupted stream of criticism for three weeks. “She shouldn’t have made herself the spokesperson for a case she doesn’t know much about”, for example castigated the socialist Olivier Faure. Former Women’s Rights Minister Laurence Rossignol warned of the risks of a “ball trap” in the fight against gender-based and sexual violence (SGBV). “She is really feminist and convinced, but there is perhaps a lack of caution in her words”continues a socialist parliamentarian.
Did Sandrine Rousseau lack precaution? On sexist and sexual violence or virility, “She is in fact making a transgressive speech, but there is no desire to shock”says Alice Coffin, friend and adviser to Sandrine Rousseau during the environmental primary, where she narrowly failed to beat Yannick Jadot. “She has an approach that is too conceptual, it’s a bit of her weakness”also points out a deputy from Nupes, “not a fan of his strategy” to be at the center of polemics. “The words-shells can hurt, you have to be careful.” This is nuanced by Hadrien Clouet, LFI deputy for Haute-Garonne.
“She plays on the offensive, assumes the incarnation of a front wing and uses another political language, very incisive.”
Hadrien Clouet, LFI MPat franceinfo
Over the months, cleaving has become a profitable but high-risk media strategy for Sandrine Rousseau. Because among his critics outside the political field, disagreement sometimes turns into hatred on social networks. “I receive around ten insulting or threatening messages a day”, she assures. In an attempt to limit its impact, the Ministry of the Interior offered him on October 11 to “launch a review” of the situation with a view to possible police protection, which she says she did not ask for. “I assume to have political adversaries, which was not the case with a certain ecology, which had erased its roughness”abstract the one who had taken a political break between 2017 and 2020, after the repercussions of the Denis Baupin affair.
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On her return to politics, in view of the environmentalist primary of 2021, Sandrine Rousseau was inspired, with the help of relatives, by the communication of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, young elected Democrat from the State of New York, who embodies American feminist radicalism. “As AOC, it passed under the media radar, the journalists did not see what could happen. Today, she is no longer invisible”welcomes Alice Coffin. “After a while, it will get tired and people will start to turn the page”anticipates Claire Monod, who was seeking the nomination in the Parisian constituency finally obtained by Sandrine Rousseau for the legislative ones.
“She does eco-populism, with an outrageous way of haranguing the public space.”
Claire Monod, Parisian ecologistat franceinfo
A language “incisive”repeated controversies… The mechanics are run in, assumed. “My positions allow usurpers to be unmasked. It tenses them up and shatters their varnishjustifies the claimed ecofeminist. I don’t do it for me. The objective is first to bring the debate on ecology to then address the question of solutions.
This is one of Sandrine Rousseu’s angles of attack in politics: winning the “cultural battle” to impose his words on public opinion. She is already gargling to have won a round within her party. “I have been criticized for radicalism, but all currents in the party are talking about radicalism today”boasts the fifty-year-old. “Radicality is something that we have in common among ecologists, since our project is radical”replies Marine Tondelier, EELV executive who targets the party’s national secretariat.
“We must also be radical in terms of respect for the collective. This is also where we are expected.”
Marine Tondelier, candidate for the national secretariat of EELVat franceinfo
Respect for the collective, it is precisely on this point that the internal adversaries criticize Sandrine Rousseau. “She hurt the environmentalist party throughout Yannick Jadot’s presidential campaign”enrages a member of the executive office of EELV. “She spent her life being negative about the campaign, so we had to put her off. side”, he explains in reference to the exclusion of Sandrine Rousseau from the MEP’s campaign team, one month before the first round of the presidential election. “Sandrine, she wasn’t thinking about the collective.”
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Personal ambition, four months after entering the Palais-Bourbon, is never far away. “She uses and abuses her position to play the congress”plague Claire Monod. It is because the green party has its eyes riveted on the month of December and the meeting which will determine its political line for the next few years. Sandrine Rousseau, who cannot run for the national secretariat because she is already a member of parliament, actively supports the candidacy of Mélissa Camara, opposition municipal councilor in Lille (North). Not far from there, there is therefore Marine Tondelier, opposition municipal councilor in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais), who wants she also succeeds Julien Bayou, to whom she is close.
Through her positions, did the Member of Parliament for Paris seek to benefit from the withdrawal of the former boss of environmentalists to advance his camp and affect Marine Tondelier? “The private sector should not be exploited for political purposes”denounced Julien Bayou to the Worldbeginning of October. “It’s delusional to say that she wants to take power through sexist and sexual violence”gets angry for his part Raphaëlle Rémy-Leleu, elected municipal official in Paris, in response to criticism from Julien Bayou.
While waiting for the congress, EELV is trying somehow to put its head back in place. “We have no political strategy, we are like a nut shell swept away by the waves”points today Sandrine Rousseau. “If we continue like this, we will continue to lose, judges a party cadre. Rousseau, it is a minority ecology and we must raise the alarm.” “In September, she was very supportive. There, it looks like it’s rocking again. It is complicated”slips Alice Coffin, who sees a “resistance to ecofeminism”.
Several ecologists deplore that, for a month and a half, the ecofeminist and her methods have thrown her own camp into turmoil. “At the party, it’s hell. It’s an even stronger shock than what we have experienced previously”laments a member, one of the only ones to still want to mention her colleague. “I do not wish to comment on the political strategy of Sandrine Rousseau, nor anything concerning it”evacuates a party executive. “As a leader on the purchasing power law, she defended the positions of the green group on this important text”is content to explain Cyrielle Chatelain, who has become the sole patroness of the EELV deputies, without wanting to comment further on the strategy of the most famous face of her group.
“We have to put words on what is happening: it is a real tetany of the executives of the movement, who are afraid of add each time she speaks”, analyzes his opponent Claire Monod. “The Bayou affair also weakened the party”acknowledges Sandrine Rousseau.
Over the weeks, relations have grown tense between the MP’s camp and her internal adversaries, who want to prevent her from getting her hands on the device. If she lost the congress in two months, the question of her future in a party she “like” could arise. “Who should I be loyal to? To my party, as a structure? Or should I be loyal to the word of women? I have chosen to be loyal to the word of women”, she explained, Saturday, October 8, on the set of the program “Quelle époque” (France 2). “If she loses the congress, let her learn from it and show solidarityjudge a former leader of the party. At some point, we are not only at the service of ourselves…”
In recent weeks, several association leaders have redoubled their criticism of EELV and the rest of the parties, “of the structures who destroy female politicians”according to Alice Coffin. For now, however, no ecofeminist party on the horizon. “They’re trying to show him the way outbelieves Raphaëlle Rémy-Leleu. It’s unhealthy, we assume disloyalty on his part.” Unfair, Sandrine Rousseau? “They use ecology like a cuckoo clock”justly castigated a member of the federal council after the Bayou affair broke out. “They dream of it, that I breaklaughs in response Sandrine Rousseau. Of course, it would be more comfortable to ride a structure with three or four people. But why recreate bazaars?
“A party that works badly is like a washing machine: it can be fixed.”
Sandrine Rousseauat franceinfo
Rather than a sensational exit from the laundromat, Sandrine Rousseau’s relatives have rather theorized a two-stage rocket. “The first step was to make her known. The second is to transform her into an inspiring and credible personality”explains his ex-adviser Marion Nadaud in the long portrait dedicated to him The Obs end of September. “We are not there, sweeps the interested main. There is still to dig deeper into the anchoring of ecology in the public debate. Afterwards, we will make calls, we will gather… But we are not at the end of the deconstruction. Waiting to know with whom she can rebuild.