“Punitive ecology is not ours, we are not here to annoy people,” defends Marine Tondelier

The boss of Ecologist-EELV denounces a “system that is strong with the weak, weak with the strong”.

“Punitive ecology is not ours”supports Tuesday April 9 on France Inter Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Les Écologues-EELV party, who assures that her party rather represents “the ecology of joy, justice, hope and redistribution”. The Hauts-de-France regional councilor considers that it “There is nothing worse than ecology when it is not done by ecologists” because “It turns into peremptory, punitive measures.”

Marine Tondelier also criticizes the fact that these measures are not aimed “never the big ones, like TotalÉnergies”, but above all “small farmers”. “It is a system which is strong with the weak, weak with the strong and which at no time raises the question of social acceptability, or the justice of the measures implemented”, she castigates. The boss of environmentalists assures on the contrary that her party “is not here to annoy the people who are already struggling due to the same policies which are causing a lot of hassle for people”.

She thus defends herself by evoking the program carried by the head of the Ecologist list in the European elections, Marie Toussaint, in particular “climate ISF” or even the takeover of the most polluting European oil and gas groups.

Ecology is “the most immense challenge that humanity has ever had to face”

For the national secretary of Ecologists-EELV, ecology “predominates all other battles to be fought” and thus represents “the most immense challenge that humanity has ever had to face”. However, she recognizes that at present “it’s gone badly”. She therefore invites voters to “a radically different choice” during the next European elections in June, by choosing a “green bulletin”.

“Europe, for decades, has been co-management between socialists and liberals (…), it is the soft underbelly of Europe.”

Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Ecologists-EELV party

at franceinfo

Marine Tondelier in fact accuses the socialists, but also the right and the presidential majority of not being “brave” and of “watch the direction of the wind” before making decisions in the European Parliament. “When the direction of the wind is towards ecology, when citizens demand it, then they go there. And then, when there are backlashes, where we demand more security, more rigor, then they prepare to vote for a pact on asylum and migration with terrible things that will put people in danger”, deplores the patron saint of environmentalists. She believes in fact that if MEPs vote for this text, then “more people will die in the Mediterranean, we [les] will leave them to their sad fate by not worrying about it or by letting them manage as best they can in Lampedusa or Mayotte”, what she judges “inadmissible”.

Asked about the absence of unity of the left for these European elections, Marine Tondelier retorts that “ecologists are not opponents of the union”. She thus asserts that she “is personally active as party leader in very actively preparing [l’union] for 2027”, that is, for the next presidential election. But the patron saint of environmentalists recalls that the European “are proportional to one turn”. In this context, “It’s an election where you vote with your heart”, she maintains. She therefore qualifies as “logic” the existence of an environmentalist list. “I have two adversaries in this story: the extreme right and the Macronists in place,” she adds.