In Paris, the head of the environmentalist list Marie Toussaint, struggling in voting intentions two months before the European elections, called on young environmentalists on Sunday to “keep hope” and build “the great leap”. “Keep hope. You are the key to the success of our battle. Go and say that the environmentalists are there and that their determination will not weaken”, she affirmed in front of 300 activists and sympathizers, in the Bellevilloise room, in the 20th arrondissement. “Faced with the great setback, let’s build the great leap!”, she said again. “Let us deploy, multiply and surpass ourselves,” she continued.
“A child of combat ecology”
While Europe is one of the fundamentals of the environmental project and climate change is one of the main concerns of the French, the 36-year-old MEP, who advocates gentleness in her campaign, is credited with around 6 to 7% of intentions vote, far from Yannick Jadot’s score of 13.4% in 2019. The lawyer behind the initiative of “The Affair of the Century”, which had the French State condemned in 2021 for its failings in the fight against global warming, admitted that the campaign was “difficult”.
“Our start to the campaign did not meet with popular support”, but “we are going to look for a good score with our teeth”, she promised. “In the days and weeks to come, we therefore have a duty of excellence, to get out of the bad situation we are going through,” explained the woman who presented herself as “a child of combat ecology”.
“Counterfeits”
Little known to the general public despite a campaign launched in December, she faces competition on the left from Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the PS-Place publique list, on a pro-European line, like her, and from the LFI Manon Aubry, however later entered the campaign. Raphaël Glucksmann also walked on his feet on Saturday in Nantes by presenting his measures for a “European ecological revolution”. “Beware of counterfeits,” replied Marie Toussaint. “Ecology is not the big words and the environmental unraveling of the CAP. It is not the deployment of mega-trucks, free trade agreements, and budgetary rules which hinder investment in transition!”.
Faced with “those who say, Glucksmann is not bad”, she warned: “the risk is to fall asleep on June 9 having voted for Raphaël Glucksmann and to wake up on June 10 with the return of François Hollande “. She also tackled Jordan Bardella, who “uses the propulsion engine of resentment.” Her program is “two thirds emptiness, one third hatred,” she added. She also took blows against the government. “When climate change accelerates, Emmanuel Macron abandons climate legislation. When living things disappear, Emmanuel Macron buries the ecophyto plan.”
“Ecological backlash”
To cheers, the MEP promised in particular standards “harmonized from above to avoid competition within the European Union itself”, a “major investment plan to make Europe the champion of depollution of the world”, or even “an Employment Pact, so that all European employees are protected”. Earlier, the head of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier once again denounced the “ecological backlash” from the government and the far right. “Macron’s enemy is the environmentalists. They are making us enemies from within, terrorists,” she lamented.
For Enzo Peroni, a 29-year-old doctor in neuroscience, who came to discover Marie Toussaint, even if she is “little known”, “it’s not bad that there are new personalities, because the last people known in ecology are not are not super appreciated”, he said, citing Sandrine Rousseau, who “divides a little too much”, Yannick Jadot, “not very convincing”, and Julien Bayou, former national secretary of the party, who resigned after accusations of violence psychological on his ex-partner. “We are convinced that we have the right incarnation,” considered Guillaume Durand, a 37-year-old environmental activist. “I am convinced that there will be a rebound, last time, things settled down in the last week.”