How to encourage young people to join a political party? This is the question that agitates the Young Ecologists. Faced with the rise of militant radicalism, they are trying to find their place. Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political brief
Like their elders, they were in the street this Saturday, in Bordeaux, Lyon, Troyes, Paris or even Angers: a handful of activists under the banner Young Ecologists who defended their opposition to the pension reform. At the national level, there are a few hundred trying to push another model of society in the shadow of the elected EELV.
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Their fight: student precariousness or the Universal National Service which, according to them, would be “a reactionary view of society“. Overall, they consider that the university is not adapted to new professions and climate issues. And on pensions, they call in vain for blockages in high schools and universities.
The difficulty of the Young Ecologists is that they are inaudible outside militant circles. They say they are free, but many are inserted in EELV. Some are even parliamentary assistants. It is therefore difficult for them to take a more divisive line as the Young LRs do (for a long time much more to the right than the party leadership). The “I”, them, therefore remain in the line. Their difficulty in making themselves heard also comes from the place taken more and more by the much more radical militant associations, those which prefer punching actions.
“Them without us, it doesn’t work”
We can thus cite Extinction Rebellion. Last week, the association degraded BNP ATMs in around thirty cities to denounce the bank’s investments in fossil fuels. Or Last Renovation, which the general public discovered with the immobilization of the Tour de France and the disruption of Roland-Garros.
For the Young Ecologists, how to make exist a political voice which seeks credibility… when, within the youth, it is these most radical groups which recruit and which make speak about them? The leadership of the movement hopes that all these initiatives are complementary. “Them without us, it doesn’t work”, theorizes an official who recognizes that the traditional parties “no longer meet the expectations of young people“.
Today, the marches for the Climate no longer federate. On the other hand, the militants who stick their hands on the asphalt to block the roads are talked about. The Young Ecologists must therefore take into account this new radicality… At the end of the week, they will organize three days of training in Nanterre, near Paris. They will discuss in particular “civil disobedience“with Last Renovation activists for”think of actions and convey a common message“, as one official confides. As if, now, it was these new, more radical activists who were setting the pace.