EELV maintained this launch in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), Saturday October 14, 2023, despite the excitement caused by the Islamist attack the day before 2023 in a middle school in Arras during which a teacher was killed and three people injured by a man labeled “S”.
A minute of silence in tribute to the victims was held at the start of the speech by the party’s national secretary, Marine Tondelier, who also called for another minute of silence for the Israeli people bruised by the unprecedented Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, and the Palestinian people bombed in Gaza.
“It will be much more than a party”
“We are The Ecologists,” declared Marine Tondelier in front of some 1,300 people including former MP Noël Mamère, presidential candidate Yannick Jadot and mathematician Cédric Villani.
“Having entered the age of maturity”, the new movement “will connect and take action those who feel green. It will be much more than a party,” she assured, saying: “Come as you are”.
While PS and PCF are thinking about their future within Nupes, EELV does not intend to leave this alliance, but on the contrary to use its new movement to have “a mode of operation which gives space to all pluralities in the within this coalition,” explains Cyrielle Chatelain, the head of the environmentalist deputies.
In February, a few months after her election as head of the party, Marine Tondelier launched the Estates General of Ecology to bring together “the people of ecology” and lay the foundations of a “great movement of ecology policy “.
She deplored “a collective failure in 2022 to bring about the change that society needs” after the disappointing score of the EELV candidate, Yannick Jadot (4.6%).
“We asked ourselves what didn’t work, why we couldn’t convince people. And we came up with answers, in particular on the fact that we had to be much more open, be more agile, extremely clear on our line,” notes Cyrielle Chatelain.
“Everything will change, except our values,” insists Marine Tondelier. “We are going to change the way of getting involved, allowing an à la carte commitment”, between those who want to join and therefore contribute to the party, and those who simply want to participate in certain events or training. “We are the leading party in city centers, but we also want to be the leading party in rural areas.”
The roadmap for the new movement, presented on Saturday, is based on a broad consultation carried out from February to April, to which nearly 30,000 people responded (including 75% non-members), said Léonore Moncond’huy, environmentalist mayor. from Poitiers.
The final document, submitted to a vote by members and supporters, was adopted by 84%.
In particular, he plans to have “a more audible and more credible speech”, but also “more positive” and “less divisive”.
The movement also aims to work “in reinforced cooperation with civil society” (associations, unions, activists), and to better welcome and train newcomers.
But EELV does not disappear immediately. The name will last temporarily until the Europeans, where both logos will be present on the ballots.
“EELV was a temporary name,” recalled Marine Tondelier on France Culture. “We did surveys, it was an obstacle” for many people. “Ecologists are much more understandable.”
The outline of the movement remains unclear for the moment until EELV modifies its statutes in February. “A statutory reform takes time if we want to do it well,” insists Marine Tondelier, who remains for the moment national secretary of EELV.
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