Discretion. Since the return of Adrien Quatennens to the National Assembly this Wednesday, La France Insoumise, which excluded him from its group until April 13, has kept a low profile on the issue. Only two deputies accompanied him when he left the Palais-Bourbon.
Mathilde Panot, the head of the group, sent the message to her troops.
“Above all, if they question you, please do not open the soap opera (…). If we could avoid everyone’s personal opinions, as the battle for pensions begins, that would be good,” explained the elected representative of Valde-Marne in the Telegram loop of deputies according to information from Le Monde.
“We really don’t have anything to say anymore”
It must be said that his presence in Parliament falls to the worst for the movement, the day after the announcement of the pension reform by Elisabeth Borne, largely rejected by the movement of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“It would be a mistake” to return to the National Assembly today in view of the “media moment” linked to pensions, as Alexis Corbière had advanced the eve of his return to LCI.
“We did what was necessary to exclude it. The rest, afterwards, is no longer really our responsibility and we no longer really have our word. We saw it well this Wednesday,” he replies again, lapidary, a heavyweight of the movement with BFMTV. .com
“If he didn’t come back, we would accuse him of not doing his job”
Upon leaving the Foreign Affairs Committee -the new body made up of the now substitute deputy who had to leave the Social Affairs Committee-, Adrien Quatennens, who said “apply and respect the decision made by his political group”, was seen surrounded by two rebels, notably Carlos Martens Bilongo.
The Val-d’Oise elected representative who had arranged a September meeting in his district with Adrien Quatennens, before calling it off after the latter admitted to slapping his wife, said he was “unavailable” to answer our questions. .
“If he did not return, we would accuse him of not doing his job. And when he returns, they criticize him for working,” explains the LFI deputy Arnaud Le Gall, also present with Adrien Quatennens at leaving the Foreign Affairs Committee.
“He made comments that question us all collectively”
Before adding: “I respect his decision and he respects the decision of his group. He is exercising his constitutional freedom as a deputy ”.
If the choice of Adrien Quatennens is not a surprise – the elected representative of the North had announced on our antenna that he would return “probably in January” – she shudders.
“Our problem is that we made the decision to temporarily exclude him once we learned of his conviction. But since then he has made comments that question all of us individually and collectively with the choices we made ”, deciphers a rebel deputy.
“Rethink” the decision to exclude it
His speeches, in the aftermath of his conviction, caused trouble in his own camp. The former LFI headliner said for the first time that he was the victim of a “media lynching” in The voice of the north
On BFMTV, Adrien Quatennens later discussed a romantic relationship that “wasn’t violent” but “difficult for about two years.” The deputy also went back to the day he slapped his wife, speaking of “a serious discussion with reciprocal threats.”
Several leaders of the movement had then disassociated themselves from their statements by Manon Aubry to Clémentine Autain through Sarah Legrain, who heads the cell to fight against sexual and sexist violence in the movement. Several now internally evoke the need to “rethink” the decision made before the interviews with Adrien Quatennens, a hypothesis that seems unlikely.
“Be discreet while being a worker”
But the text signed by more than 1,000 LFI or Nupes activists calling for the “exclusion of Adrien Quatennens” on Boxing Day chilled even those who still supported him internally.
“It is not known who signed him. But at one point we told ourselves that perhaps we have reached the end of what we could do both to punish him and to allow him to be rehabilitated politically,” acknowledges a framework from the movement.
To turn the page, Adrien Quatennens should dedicate himself in the coming weeks to the bottom of the files.
“His goal now to turn the page is to be discreet while continuing to be a worker, perhaps write a book to tell what he has experienced,” deciphers a parliamentary collaborator.
local support
If several of his relatives, such as Ugo Bernalicis, his constituency neighbor whom Adrien Quatennens said of him in 2018 as “his alter ego in politics”, remain silent, now he will have to turn to his territory in Lille to find frank support.
Among them is Patrick Proisy, the LFI mayor of Faches-Thumesnil, one of the municipalities in the deputy’s constituency, who was present when he left the Lille court last December or his deputy in the 2017 legislative elections Agnes Pinson. He secured this Thursday with the voice of the north that Adrien Quatennens “is not the violent man we portray”.
In the benches of the presidential majority that has not escaped the embarrassment of the rebels, a bill to disqualify the deputies in case of certain violence will be examined in the Assembly, probably in March.
Source: BFM TV
