The Quatennens affair continues to cause turmoil and dissension within La France insoumise (LFI) and, beyond, the New popular ecological and social union (Nupes).
More than a thousand activists signed a column, published Monday, December 26 in Le Monde, to denounce the decision of the movement to exclude only temporarily from its parliamentary group the deputy Adrien Quatennens, sentenced in mid-December for domestic violence.
"We, members of insubordinate France and Nupes demand the exclusion of Adrien Quatennens", can we read in the forum.
"We call on activists to insubordination," they continue, denouncing a "vertical system that favors the protection of senior executives at the expense of activists and programs".
Suspended for four months from his group in the National Assembly in the wake of his four-month suspended prison sentence for "violence" on his wife, the deputy from the North refused to resign and announced a return to the benches of the Bourbon Palace in January.
>> To read: The Quatennens affair, a "crash-test" for La France insoumise
"Apply your promises, act: yes, the private is political, no aggressor has its place in our parties, our organizations, our institutions, in our hemicycles", urge the signatories.
The publication of this forum is a sign that the militant base, and in particular feminists and young people, does not intend to let LFI and Adrien Quatennens get away with what it considers to be a half-measure.
It symbolizes a break between the management of LFI and its militant base.
Twenty-five rebellious groups on "militant strike"
As of December 13, the day of the conviction of the deputy from the North, the Young insoumis of Poitiers took the plunge and announced in a press release on Twitter "the indefinite stoppage" of the action group.
A week later, the young people of Poitevin were joined by more than a dozen action groups in this "militant strike".
In total, twenty-five collectives stamped France insoumise have publicly expressed their anger, according to a count of the Discord Insoumis, a collective which brings together nearly 17,000 people on discussion channels.
🔴 #GrèveMilitante - 23/12
25 rebellious groups call for the definitive exclusion of @AQuatennens from @FIAssemblee.
His interviews must question the political sanction of the group.
Let's be united without him and under the same banner for the battle for pensions!
🪧✊ pic.twitter.com/eVapx9dq3e
– The insoumis Discord (@Action_Insoumis) December 23, 2022
"We will not go further than the militant strike", explains the Discord Insoumis to AFP.
But "we think that excluding definitively and as soon as possible Adrien Quatennens from the parliamentary group would make it possible, precisely, to avoid arriving at a militant hemorrhage".
Remarks that resonate with the criticisms made by certain LFI deputies after the interviews given by Adrien Quatennens to La Voix du Nord and BFM TV, only a few hours after his conviction, in which he claimed not to be "an aggressor" and "a violent man", while claiming to be the victim of a "media lynching".
MP Clémentine Autain thus reported in the Journal du Dimanche to have "remained nailed to the ground" by noting that he "methodically refuted all feminist principles".
"He took no account of the point of balance found democratically within our group and of the words that we posed", she protested, even considering that "his statements will reopen the debate" within the group of LFI deputies.
Like many, I feel a deep unease about interviews with Adrien Quatennens.
After a conviction for domestic violence, we do not go on TV to minimize or "contextualize" by revealing the victim's past.
This goes against our feminist fight.
— Manon Aubry (@ManonAubryFr) December 16, 2022
"Like many, I feel a deep discomfort with the interviews of Adrien Quatennens. After a conviction for domestic violence, we do not go on TV to minimize or 'contextualize' by revealing the victim's past", tweeted Manon Aubry , Member of the European Parliament and Co-President of the Left Group in the European Parliament.
"It goes against our feminist fight," she said.
"Not in my name, not in our name"
"Revealing the victim's past, childhood, intimacy. Minimizing and relativizing one's own violence. This strategy is characteristic of perpetrators of domestic violence. It's serious. It hurts our fights, against all forms of violence. made to women", for her part judged the deputy of Puy-de-Dôme Marianne Maximi on Twitter.
Reveal the past, the childhood, the intimacy of the victim.
Minimize and relativize one's own violence.
This strategy is characteristic of the perpetrators of domestic violence.
It's serious.
This hurts our fights, against all violence against women.#Quatennens
— Marianne Maximi (@MarianneMaximi) December 15, 2022
"I just have to react to the personal communication of Adrien Quatennens: not in my name, not in our name", also tweeted Sarah Legrain, deputy for Paris and member of the cell against sexist and sexual violence of LFI.
These remarks, however, only concerned the media strategy of Adrien Quatennens and did not call into question the collective decision of the LFI deputies to suspend him for four months from the parliamentary group.
Only MP Pascale Martin has so far publicly denounced, on BFM TV, "a political error", believing that "it should have been excluded from the group".
Beyond La France insoumise, the whole Nupes boat is pitching.
“For a sanction of this nature, we would have pronounced the expulsion”, had notably declared on December 13 the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure.
"It's not enough. The message must be clear. When an elected official is convicted of gender-based and sexual violence, he must resign," said the boss of the Europe Ecology-Les Verts group in the Assembly, Cyrielle Chatelain.
We must be intractable on gender-based and sexual violence.
For environmentalists, an elected official convicted of gender-based and sexual violence must resign.
This doctrine must apply everywhere, for everyone.
#AdrienQuatennens
— Cyrielle Chatelain (@Cyrielle_Chtl) December 13, 2022
Will the militant pressure and its Nupes partners push the rebellious to reopen the Quatennens file?
While Jean-Luc Mélenchon came third in the last presidential election and managed to unite the left behind him in the legislative elections, the hegemony of La France insoumise appears to be weakened at the end of 2022. There is no doubt that the return of Adrien Quatennens at the Assembly in January will arouse new reactions.
The militant base is not about to give up the fight.
"You asked us to show determination and to be implacable. We are. We will not give in anything, because you said it: we are right", concludes the collective of activists in its platform.
The summary of the
France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 app