“We give the impression that we are doing double standards, we cannot continue like this”, sighs a collaborator of the La France insoumise group, summing up the atmosphere within the party, in a “state of astonishment” since Adrien Quatennens admitted last Sunday to having slapped to your wife.
Faced with several accusations in its ranks in recent months, the movement seems to be torn between taking into account the voices of women and loyalty to its lieutenants.
Bouhafs dismissed, Coquerel retained, Quatennens “retired”
Last May, it was the militant journalist Taha Bouhafs who abandoned the race for the legislative elections in the Rhône, officially claiming to be the victim of racist harassment.
A few weeks later, we discovered that LFI’s internal monitoring committee had received “detailed testimony of serious sexual assaults”, as Clémentine Autain suggests. The party asked him to withdraw her candidacy, “due to the seriousness of the alleged facts, as a precautionary principle,” the movement later explained to BFMTV.
At the end of June, just elected president of the Finance Commission of the National Assembly, Éric Coquerel was the target of the accusations of Sophie Tissier. The former yellow vests denounce her “scandalous, offensive, harassing behavior” – which is denied by the LFI deputy, the subject of an investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office for “sexual harassment and assault.”
The deputy was not subject to any internal sanction within the movement.
“Eric Coquerel is not guilty of anything at all”, sweeps Jean-Luc Mélenchon with Liberation. “He is the subject of a rumor and a political operation.”
Latest case: Adrien Quatennens. After having mentioned the presentation of a handrail by his wife, with whom he is in divorce proceedings, the deputy acknowledges in a press release that he had slapped her and announced his retirement from his position as coordinator of LFI.
Two days later, Danièle Obono also announced his “retirement from parliamentary work”, while the Lille prosecutor’s office confirmed the opening of an investigation. The resignation of his mandate as deputy is not on the table, however, says Mathilde Panot, president of the LFI group in the National Assembly.
“Believing in the words of women is an arbitrary choice”
On the benches of the opponents of La France insoumise, several figures took pleasure in underlining the contradictions of the party. At the National Rally, Marine Le Pen thus denounces “the difficulties” of LFI on the subject when Aurore Bergé, president of the Renaissance group in the Assembly, evokes a “variable geometry indignation”.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s attitude is particularly criticized. Especially since he tweets his “trust” and his “affection” to Adrien Quatennens when his party line on the issue of sexual and gender-based violence is, on paper, maximalist.
“Deciding to believe the word of women is an arbitrary choice but we assume it,” she explained in the columns of Release last July.
One precise procedure, variable results
But within the party we do not deny the difficulties of managing these issues internally through the unit against sexual and gender-based violence. launched in 2018 by Danièle Simonnet, close to Éric Coquerel.
Each alleged victim, whether elected or activist, can alert this monitoring committee and present their testimony in a specific email. Made up of seven members, all women volunteers, it then meets with the alleged victim to collect her testimony. The objective is to build an archive with her story, other testimonies if they exist, and material elements such as text messages.
All these documents are then sent to another body: the TLF Principles Compliance Committee. It is he who must question the person who is the subject of the accusations and decide on possible sanctions such as suspension or expulsion from the game.
In the case of Taha Bouhafs, the monitoring committee had received several reports against him in early May, when he was a candidate for the legislative elections. The militant journalist had then withdrawn his candidacy before the investigation of his file was completed, so the procedure was stopped.
In the case of Éric Coquerel, Sophie Tissier approached the committee after having publicly denounced the events of which she was allegedly a victim, before filing a complaint. With Mediapart, she explained that she had initially not wanted to seize the LFI cell, judging the reported events as “not serious enough”.
In the case of Adrien Quatennens, the cell was not contacted by his wife, who is not an activist or elected official. The committee cannot, in addition, self-seize.
A “difficult situation on a human level”
To explain the differences in treatment between the three cases, Mathilde Viot, co-founder of the Observatory of sexual and sexist violence in politics, uses several explanations.
“There is a clan mechanism to defend loved ones, people we appreciate”, analyzes this former LFI collaborator in the first place.
The fact is that the career of Taha Bouhafs, a figure in the movement against police violence quite far from government bodies, is very different from that of Éric Coquerel or Adrien Quatennens, two men at the heart of the rebel machinery. In the case of the deputy from the North, number 2 of the party, Clémentine Autain also spoke of a “very difficult situation on a human level”, this Tuesday on BFMTV.
“Imagine if it happens to you there (in your workplace). You have the scare, the emotion that can wake you up (…) We are elected officials but we are also a human group, ”also explained the elected from Sena-Saint-Denis.
On the other hand, “Taha Bouhafs did not have much connection with people who really mattered internally,” summarizes a local elected official. “We had seen him in the social struggles, but he was never really part of the machine. I don’t think many people were quick to defend him.”
The activist did not hold an electoral mandate either, unlike Éric Coquerel and Adrien Quatennens, both deputies, which would also complicate the deal in terms of procedures.
“It is not the same to withdraw someone’s candidacy in an election and ask an elected official who represents us before the Republic to leave the party, or even renounce the mission entrusted by the voters,” analyzes another rebel.
“I don’t know what they accuse me of”
Taha Bouhafs himself has also pointed out the procedure followed by the party in his case. Two months after his withdrawal from the legislative candidacy, he publishes a six-page letter to his “fellow rebels,” saying “don’t know what we are accusing you of” and regretting “never having been confronted with such accusations.”
“After a long period of public silence and after several internal reminders, I return to you with this letter to ask for a fair and equitable procedure in which I can know what exactly I am accused of,” he wrote again.
In response, LFI explains that, unless the complainant agrees, the mode of operation of the cell does not allow the identity of the alleged victim to be communicated, as well as the place and date of the alleged events.
The movement was also justified in a press release: “Our operational methods to face the new challenges that arise from this need to listen and punish, while justice struggles so much to do its job, (…) are obviously perfectible to the extent that that respond to new challenges”, announced the party last July.
“If society worked perfectly to reduce this violence, we would not be obliged to take such internal measures ourselves,” the party developed in this press release.
Why not section 40?
The party could, however, resort to another resource: article 40. This text of the criminal procedure consists of informing the Public Prosecutor of the knowledge of an infraction or a crime.
“Cases of domestic violence or harassment are not resolved internally,” as explain Aurore Bergé, patron saint of Macronist deputies (Renaissance still got a fighting cell Against Sexual Violence, Editor’s Note). “If I or the group were called, we would immediately file an article 40 report.”
LFI did not opt for this option because it considered that in this case the will of the alleged victim was not necessarily respected. “If the victim does not want to take legal action, she no longer has a voice because the prosecutor automatically takes charge of the file,” deciphers Mathilde Viot, co-founder of the Observatory of sexual and sexist violence in politics. “And the person remains in her place pending a possible legal sanction, and may still commit other crimes in her charge.”
Others also point out the difference between political time and judicial time, justifying the internal action of the party. Georges Tron, former Secretary of State, was thus accused in 2011 of rape and sexual assault. He was finally sentenced in 2021. Ten years later.
“He remained a member of the municipal council of his city all the years of his trial and even after his conviction. What is the signal sent to the victims, to their constituents?” asks Fiona Texeire, one of the promoters of #Metoopolitique the past. fall.
To avoid the internal management of these matters, the environmentalist deputy Sandrine Rousseau wished last Monday on France 5 the launch of an independent authority, “such as the high authority for the transparency of public life.” The Superior Council for Equality between Women and Men wanted the creation of this body as early as 2019.
Source: BFM TV
