“Who wants to be represented by someone who hits his wife, who harasses his collaborator or who generally behaves violently towards women?“, wonders Thursday, May 19 on franceinfo Fiona Texeire, collaborator of elected officials, speaker at Sciences Po Rennes and co-initiator of #metoopolitique, after the withdrawal of the candidacy for the legislative elections of Jérôme Peyrat.
>> By withdrawing his candidacy, Jérôme Peyrat “made a decision that honors him”, reacts the mayor of Reims Arnaud Robinet
Sentenced for domestic violence, the latter had nevertheless been invested in the 4th district of Dordogne by LREM. Fiona Texeire asks the parties to “no longer take the risk of investing violent men in positions of power“.
franceinfo: Jérôme Peyrat, convicted of domestic violence, speaks of an error of assessment, of misunderstanding about his candidacy when withdrawing it, what do you think?
Fiona Texeire: It is a misunderstanding of the role of a member who represents the whole nation. Today, who wants to be represented by someone who hits his wife, who harasses his collaborator or who generally behaves violently towards women? The question shouldn’t even arise. We citizens, we should not even have had this role of questioning the parties. We are still there when we have been asking political parties for months to be vigilant about nominations. We are still there to ask accounts to challenge the parties so that they stop neglecting the voice of women.
Taha Bouhafs was withdrawn by Nupes, Jérôme Peyrat is retiring, can we say that things are progressing anyway?
I believe that things will have really moved forward when we no longer need to hold the parties accountable. Most often, the parties can carry out an internal investigation, suspend, take preventive decisions. We are not asking the parties to take the place of justice. They are asked to listen to women’s voices, to protect them and to no longer take the risk of placing violent men in positions of power. Political parties are forced to react after the fact. What would be normal is that they do it upstream and that this question is no longer due to activists. It would be good for the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life to ensure that elected officials do not represent a danger to women.
This prevention that you advance, the political parties have trouble hearing it?
When we listen to the words of women, we cannot say that “it will be fine”, as the Minister of the Interior claims. There are women who have made accusations of violence. Is this the model we want in the National Assembly? Do we want to offer [aux hommes violents] parliamentary immunity? Do we think they will be able to mobilize to pass laws that protect women against the violence that can be inflicted on them? Is it to them that we want to entrust this task?