Ségolène Royal publishes a book in which she settles her accounts, very critical of those who govern. On his relationship with Francois Hollande, she believes to have made history, "without rancor but without forgetting".

Interview

Ségolène Royal, ambassador for the Arctic and Antarctic poles

Why did not you write this book before?

Because I was in charge, I was a minister. And because the actors in this book were still in charge. I wanted to wait after the women's speech, the MeToo movement. Many people asked me about my route as a woman politician, I suffered in 2006 and 2007 attacks of unprecedented violence. She was particularly violent in my own camp. But it's not a revenge book, nor a settlement. There is talk of uprooting and dehumanization. If we want to re-root the planet and politics, the two things are linked. It's my contribution to changing and improving the political rules, as well as the climate crisis.

Macron and Holland, you say in your book, reproduce the same errors, with the same casualness ... Why?

The scourge of politics is flippancy. At the highest level of power there is a political decision-making process that lacks listening and participatory democracy. Those in power think they know everything. Take the merger of the municipalities, an agency said it needed fewer local communities, but to do what exactly? More than 1,500 mayors have since resigned. It is clear with the yellow vests how the lack of listening is important in France. I am proud to have stopped the porticoes after the movement of the red caps. The reform of the ecotax was absurd. I took my responsibilities. I spared the country an incredible crisis and a very questionable reform on the financial side.

Notre-Dame-des-Landes: "Vinci was too greedy"

Notre-Dame-des-Landes, you speak of "blindness". How could the state get so far into the carpet?

The project was very old, badly calibrated at first. It is an oversized project where there has been a real lack of listening. The promoter Vinci was both the expert and the promoter. He had an interest in doing the maximum: for example two tracks while only one was enough. He got the freezing of an area with too much influence. He was too greedy. The shock is when we discovered the immensity of the frozen space. There, the file is encysted. Nobody wanted to give in. In short, the state has failed in its role as mediator and arbitrator.

What role did you play with President Hollande for NDDL?

Do not think I was more listened to than Manuel Valls. In the arbitrations I was able to obtain, I was both opposed to the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior ...

His story with Holland: "Without rancor but without forgetting"

When you were the Minister of the Environment, were you seized with complaints about the use of metam sodium?

No, we were not talking about it yet ...

What do you think of François De Rugy from Nantes as Minister of Ecology?

I can not judge, it has been in place for too short a time ...

You have also in this book sold your story with François Hollande ...

It's a story everyone had talked about except me. It is a word of women, I could say what I felt with modesty. Without rancor but without forgetting.