Paris (AFP)
MEP Yannick Jadot or ecofeminist Sandrine Rousseau: who will wear the colors of environmentalists in the 2022 presidential election?
Verdict Tuesday at 5.30 p.m. with the result of the second round of the primary which, beyond the Greens, will have consequences for the entire left.
Nothing can predict the choice of the more than 122,000 registered for this primary, called since Saturday to designate, by an online ballot, their candidate.
The result will be announced in a bar-restaurant in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), not far from the headquarters of the two finalists, Yannick Jadot on a barge-bar, Sandrine Rousseau in a solidarity restaurant training people far from employment.
Leading the first round with 27.7% of the vote, Yannick Jadot, considered the favorite, was just ahead of Sandrine Rousseau (25.14% of the vote).
The latter created a surprise by qualifying to the detriment of ex-minister Delphine Batho (22.32%), champion of "degrowth", and the mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle (22.29%), who defended a "humanist arc" able to bring together all the forces of the left.
Neither of the two unfortunate challengers gave an instruction to vote for the second round.
Only the entrepreneur Jean-Marc Governatori, dead last in the first round (2.35%), called to vote for Yannick Jadot.
Combo of photos of Sandrine Rousseau and Yannick Jadot taken on December 9 and 10, 2021 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives
The two finalists differ in particular on how to bring ecology to power.
Taking a pragmatic line, Yannick Jadot puts forward an ecology of "gathering" and "government".
Opposite, Sandrine Rousseau defends "radicalism" and an ecology "which transforms production models, leaves productivism, of the consumer society".
In a party adept at reversals, where the favorite rarely wins (Cécile Duflot beaten in 2016, Nicolas Hulot in 2011, ...), "very clever the one who can make a prognosis", underlines the ex-LREM deputy Matthieu Orphan, who rallied Yannick Jadot after supporting Eric Piolle.
But he sees as "a very positive sign all the great voices of ecology who take a stand" for the MEP.
If he believes that Piolle voters were able to vote Yannick Jadot, who took over some of the measures advocated by the mayor of Grenoble, "the real enigma" concerns, according to him, those who voted for Delphine Batho, "a difficult electorate to identify ".
- "Bringing environmentalists together" -
On paper, Yannick Jadot has more support from EELV executives: the former presidential candidates, Eva Joly and Dominique Voynet, the European deputy Karima Delli, the president of the environmentalist group in the Senate Guillaume Gontard, the ex-LREM deputy Aurélien Taché or the mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic.
"It necessarily helps even if it will not be the primary", we explain in the entourage of the MEP, summarizing: "we need an ecology that brings together society, and for that we must start by bringing together the environmentalists ".
But Sandrine Rousseau "is not supported by environmentalists, but by people who have the same cause as her," said the same source.
If she wins, "after a month her campaign can explode", because of the cut with party officials.
Yannick Jadot and Sandrine Rousseau in Poitiers on August 19, 2021 during the Summer Days of EELV MEHDI FEDOUACH AFP / Archives
The candidate for her part received the support of feminist figures, such as Paris advisor Alice Coffin and filmmaker Céline Sciamma.
And the electoral body of the primary is made up "only of a little more than 12% of members of the environmentalist pole. It is not the rallies of this or that framework who will make the election but the 100,000 people who remain ", analyzes his entourage, believing that" it is a political and strategic error to banish her from the party to save the EELV soldier ".
Both have promised to rally behind the winner.
The result will be particularly scrutinized on the left.
Particularly within the Socialist Party and France Insoumise who each hope to attract the disappointed with the primary.
© 2021 AFP