Will Marine Tondelier be the only candidate in the internal election that the Ecologists will organize to choose their champion in the left-wing primary? The answer will be known tonight, the deadline to participate in the Green Party’s election scheduled for December 5-8 for the first round, and December 12-15 for a second round.
In any case, the appointment of the party’s national secretary since 2022, easily re-elected last spring, seems more than assured. It was on Wednesday, October 23rd, in Le Nouvel Obs that the 39-year-old Hauts representative announced her candidacy for the Élysée Palace, which she presented as “an act of love for France.” “I’ve never believed in providential men or women: I believe in alliances,” she also declared. However, the left-wing primary, which she actively advocates with Lucie Castets, is currently far from attracting its partners.
Marine Tondelier
That same evening, on the set of TF1’s 8 p.m. news, Marine Tondelier reiterated the importance of a “single candidate from the left and the ecologists.” Ready to submit to the votes of left-wing and Green supporters, facing François Ruffin (Debout!) and Clémentine Autain (L’Après), the national secretary of the Ecologists also warned Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Raphäel Glucksmann—both opposed to the left-wing primary: “By constantly explaining that it’s either one or the other, it will be neither.”
What will Marine Tondelier do if the primary doesn’t happen? No one knows. That didn’t stop her from unveiling a campaign poster with a clear message. “Another Marine is possible!” reads the slogan next to the candidate’s smiling face. The text is white on a solid green—like the color of her party and the jackets that have been so much talked about since the last European elections—while her first name, “Marine,” is adorned in green on a white background… A color change the candidate hopes is prescient.
Because, primary or not, Marine Tondelier presents herself as the alternative—the only one?—to Marine Le Pen’s party. Experience proves this. Marine Tondelier, municipal councilor in Hénin-Beaumont since 2014, has been competing with the National Rally on home turf for over ten years. In early October, she denounced the Islamophobic nature of comments made by Socialist Party MP Pernelle Richardot, following a controversy sparked by the far right in Strasbourg.
More than a territorial rivalry, the regional councilor seems to reject any possible confusion between left-wing parties and the National Rally. A radicalism which, in the face of Mélenchon and Glucksmann’s refusal to participate in the primary, could bear fruit among left-wing voters.
