Europe 1 with AFP 6:51 p.m., December 10, 2022

Marine Tondelier, 36-year-old municipal councilor of Hénin-Beaumont in Pas-de-Calais, was elected Saturday as the new national secretary of the Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) party and succeeds Julien Bayou, during a Congress in Rungis. in the Val-de-Marne.

His motion was adopted by 90.8% of the votes of the 400 congress delegates.

Elected on Saturday at the head of Europe Ecologie Les Verts, Marine Tondelier, 36, is known for her fight against the RN in Hénin-Beaumont in Pas-de-Calais.

She wants to rebuild a divided and barely audible party, defending "popular ecology" and "the collective".

"Individualism in politics is complicated, and it is a poison specifically for our party": activist of EELV since 2009 - after a meeting of José Bové for the Europeans -, Marine Tondelier knows well the pangs from which suffers his side.

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The elected official is exasperated by the internal quarrels, illustrated in particular by the duel between the MEP Yannick Jadot and the ecofeminist deputy Sandrine Rousseau.

Reconcile the EELV family

The one who succeeds Julien Bayou, accused of psychological violence against an ex-companion, which he disputes, wants as a priority to reconcile his political family and reconnect the party to the popular electorate.

The vegetarian with green eyes and brown hair intends to create "a great movement of political ecology" and "bring together a million environmental sympathizers" by the end of her mandate.

In the party's management team since 2013, this football and trail fan was responsible for organizing the summer days.

"Tondelier is a slow-growing, solid tree", which "reassures activists", depicts MEP David Cormand.

"She was close to very exposed personalities, she saw the pitfalls," he continues.

She was notably parliamentary assistant to Cécile Duflot, campaign director for the mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle during the environmental primary, and spokesperson for Yannick Jadot in the presidential election.

"Our project is radical", urges Tondelier

"We were not sufficiently prepared" for this deadline, recognizes the elected chti, who wants to "give a course, a hope to the militants".

"The real subject, says this mother of a 4-year-old boy, is that for children who are born now, we do not know if the earth will still be habitable when they are 30 years old".

Internally, if all welcome his "energy", even "his hyperactivity", an ecologist admits not knowing "what is his political line", another deplores "a lack of rupture".

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"Ecology is radical, our project is radical (...) I have no lesson in radicalism to receive", retorts Marine Tondelier.

She believes that "the French do not expect us to shock them, but to help them", and highlights her fight against palm oil or soil pollution.

Tondelier "will easily manage a team"

For Alain Coulombel, member of the left wing of the party, she "will easily be able to lead a team", but he "does not see (does) not very well what is its political framework" vis-à-vis the left alliance .

"The Nupes, I did it on the ground before the Nupes", answers the new head of EELV, who wants "a continuation" to this alliance, but by reviewing the governance.

She also defends an autonomous EELV list for the Europeans of 2024.

Alexis Braud, close to Yannick Jadot, recognizes her "an intimate knowledge of the movement which can allow her to lead changes", and salutes "her attachment to Hénin-Beaumont", a former mining town from which she is from, like her grandparents farmers and pharmacists, his mother a dentist and his father a homeopath.

It is in this RN city that the ex-student of Sciences Po Lille, specialized in environmental health, cut her teeth, becoming in 2014 elected opposition against mayor Steeve Briois.

She wants to change the name of the party

“She is an incredible fighter, she is undergoing enormous violence there”, notes the deputy Generations Benjamin Lucas.

An experience recounted in his book "News from the Front" in 2017. For RN deputy Bruno Bilde, ex-president of the majority group on the Hénin-Beaumont municipal council, Marine Tondelier is "an opportunist, attracted by light", who "immediately saw the media interest in existing through us".

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He claims that she is "not at all appreciated by the population", recalling that she only made 18% in the municipal elections of 2020, "while she had managed to make a PS-PCF-LFI list -EELV".

The new patron saint of ecologists has fought Marine Le Pen several times in the legislative elections, without success, even in 2022 as a Nupes candidate.

She has also been elected regional opposition councilor against LR Xavier Bertrand since 2021. Marine Tondelier will now leave her post in an environmental agency to devote herself entirely to EELV, whose name she hopes to change.