“There is still too often a feeling of indifference on the part of the parties”, regrets Senator PS Laurence Rossignol

“There is still too often a kind of feeling of indifference on the part of political parties”, declared on franceinfo Monday, November 15 Laurence Rossignol, senator of the Oise (PS) and vice-president of the Senate, signatory with 285 other women engaged in politics of a platform for a #MeTooPolitique. “The parties must understand that tolerating men implicated in cases of sexual violence is not simply a private matter, it reflects on the image of the whole party and it is complacency”, she added.

Male-dominated worlds of power are conducive to sexual violence, leniency towards perpetrators and contempt for victims. To make it stop, I signed this appeal #MeTooPolitics https://t.co/mh8L12oQyC

– Laurence Rossignol (@laurossignol) November 15, 2021

For Laurence Rossignol, it is up to the political parties to “to do the housework” and in particular in the method of designating their candidates. “What we are asking is that cases of violence and harassment be taken into account to disqualify candidates”, she explains. She also calls for the responsibility of the mayors who sponsor the presidential candidates.

The vice-president of the Senate denounces a political environment “strong male dominance”, with behaviors ranging from “moral harassment to the point of assault and rape” around which there are “reflexes of male and partisan solidarity.” These cases of moral and sexual violence are not treated like the others, according to Laurence Rossignol, “imagine candidates implicated in corruption cases, it dishonours the whole party!”

She pleads for the establishment of a body within political parties to deal with these issues, as the Socialist Party has been able to do. “Some candidates did not have the nomination of the PS for these reasons, there were commissions, we listened to the different parties, the witnesses, and we took decisions, all parties can do it.”