LFI’s political return disrupted by its handling of cases of gender-based and sexual violence

After the questioning of deputy Eric Coquerel for his behavior with women, La France insoumise (LFI) hoped to let the dust settle gently. The accusations by name against the brand new chairman of the finance committee of the National Assembly, emanating from the former activist Sophie Tissier, were they not reduced to a “insistent flirting eight years ago”, as estimated on Monday by the number one of the movement, Adrien Quatennens, on LCI?

At LFI, despite the filing of a complaint by the latter for sexual harassment against the deputy, the case was heard. The whole militant machine had been deployed on social networks to support the deputy, from the base to the top. Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself lamented on his blog a “infamous slander operation”MEP Leïla Chaibi denounced “a society where rumors on social networks serve as a people’s tribunal”while Mathilde Panot refuted the “abject comparisons with the Abad or Darmanin affair” and assured him: “He has my support. » At the risk of rushing feminist activists, the movement decided to launch a massive operation to silence the rumors and attack the credibility of the rare testimonies.

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Sophie Tissier, for example. Party executives believe that the former LFI activist was ambiguous vis-à-vis Marine Le Pen during the between-two-rounds. “The Navy didn’t bother anyone until they were in the second round… now it’s the devil?” ! »she had notably tweeted at the time, deploring a ballot of the “no choice”. A formula not so far from those of LFI during the campaign, but which now applies to the old “yellow vest”, “antipass” and founder of a micro-party, to be called a political adversary.

The past stirred

Jean-Luc Mélenchon the first denounced, on Sunday,“a parade of accusers” having in “common their activism for years against LFI”. Among Nupes partners, few venture into the field. Sandrine Rousseau believes that the charges against the deputy are below the threshold of offenses qualified by law, that they illustrate the limit of feminist struggles. However, she rejects the method vis-à-vis women who express themselves: “The idea is not to fall on them with short arms, but to understand why they experienced it badly…”

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Not insignificant for a movement anxious to appear as the first ally of the feminist cause, the episode stirs up the past and brings previous cases back to the fore, such as the exit of Thomas Guénolé, an executive who left with a bang in 2019 denouncing the side “kafkaesque” of an internal procedure for facts assimilated to sexual harassment, facts which he has always disputed and which have given rise to a defamation suit.

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