VSis by a convoluted press release, published on 1er February, that Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) put an end to the Bayou case. After a thousand language precautions and reminders of the party’s commitment to “combating violence against women”the executive office admits, with the end of the pen, that for lack of testimonies “the cell has decided to close the file”. Thus ends, in a total discretion but in the form of a fiasco, the investigation carried out by this structure into possible psychological violence committed by Julien Bayou, deputy for Paris and former national secretary of the party, towards his ex-companion.
Six years after #metoo, is this episode the manifestation of a drift that would have transformed the fight of women into a blind crusade against a man, whose fickle life was spread out in the public square? The proof of the inanity of these famous cells, erected in progress by the parties of the left, but which could only be bad courts of exception? “This reveals that on these subjects, new to all of us, we invent tools as and when needed”analyzes Senator (PS) Laurence Rossignol.
Main lesson for environmentalists: this cell, created in 2016, in the wake of the Denis Baupin affair, a former deputy accused of sexual harassment by several activists (including Sandrine Rousseau who caused the media whirlwind by recounting having collected the confidences of the ex-companion of Julien Bayou), has, to the test of reality, proved to be dysfunctional.
“Satisfactory for anyone”
The independence of this cell vis-à-vis the leadership, presented as a guarantee of protection for potential victims, deprived the party cadres of any control. The impartiality of certain voluntary militants composing it has been questioned. It is also because she did not trust this cell that the former companion of Julien Bayou finally refused to testify. For her part, Marie Dosé, the lawyer for the former leader of the Greens, asked for the recusal of one of her members.
Finally, the protocol devised to best accommodate women’s voices, based on absolute secrecy, seems to have forgotten the rights of the defence. For seven months, the press and Julien Bayou were convinced that an investigation was open. How could it have been otherwise when, to the arguments of the defence, it was answered by the cell that a “investigation takes time”. It’s only the 1er February that Julien Bayou’s lawyer understood that the file had never been opened, the pre-interview of the potential victim, the starting point of the investigation, never having taken place. The structure of the Greens has proven to be less protective than a classic legal procedure, in which the lawyer is informed when a complaint is filed, a preliminary investigation opened.
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