EELV: Jadot believes that Bayou should withdraw from the national secretariat

Julien Bayou, accused of psychological violence by an ex-companion, should “withdraw” from the national secretariat of EELV, as he has already done from the co-presidency of the environmental group in the Assembly, judged Sunday the former Green presidential candidate Yannick Jadot. An ex-companion of Julien Bayou seized a dedicated cell within EELV. She criticizes the current number one of the party for “behavior likely to break the moral health of women”, according to the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau, who reported having received it. “For the serenity of the internal investigation”, he would be “of good intelligence […] that we accelerate its withdrawal from the national secretariat of EELV”, said Yannick Jadot, questioned on the subject during the program Grand-Jury RTL /Le Figaro/LCI.

The office of the environmental group in the Assembly had decided on Tuesday to suspend Julien Bayou from his duties as co-president, the day after details on this affair were given by Sandrine Rousseau on a television set. Yannick Jadot, however, regretted the speech of the latter in the media while an internal investigation is underway. “I am not in favor of these personal positions which damage a process that we must all respect,” he said.

Mélenchon “committed a political error”

The former Green presidential candidate also criticized the way in which LFI had handled the case of Adrien Quatennens, withdrawn after admitting domestic violence. “You have a certain number of leaders who have rather played male solidarity, even virilist, than the protection of women”, estimated Yannick Jadot. He in particular judged that Jean-Luc Mélenchon had “committed a political error” in his way of expressing himself on this affair.

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But “the subject is not Mélenchon today, the subject is women victims of violence within our society, it is women who do not receive equal skills as much as men in companies”, he insisted.

New setback among environmentalists

The internal referendum to simplify the organization and adapt EELV to the “conquest of power”, supported by the party leadership, was rejected, plunging the ecologist party a little further into the crisis already fueled by the Bayou affair. According to two leaders of Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV), the referendum obtained around 54% yes, far from the 66% necessary to be adopted. The introduction to the referendum urged saying “yes to the end of motions, as machines for manufacturing opacity and militant demobilization. Yes to more transparent and more readable operations”.