The Greens endorse the principle of an autonomous list. MEP Marie Toussaint, 36, was appointed Monday, July 10, leader of the environmentalists for the 2024 European elections, the party announced after an internal vote by activists.
She collected 59.5% of the votes (out of 4,678 voters), ahead of David Cormand, who will be number two on the list, announced the national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), Marine Tondelier.
A lawyer, Marie Toussaint has distinguished herself with “The Case of the Century”, a legal remedy against France’s climate inaction. In the European Parliament, she obtained the vote of European parliamentarians for the recognition of ecocide in European law.
“I will make it a point of honor that environmentalists fight for a Europe of the living, and a Europe of justice”, she declared to the press, assuring that “the mother of battles is to re-embed the economy within planetary boundaries.
“Refusing the War of the Lefts”
Believing that the campaign would be “difficult”, she also promised to “fight the extreme right head-on”, and affirmed that there was “no question of taking some regulatory environmental pause”, in response to about the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, whose “greenwashing” she denounced.
Finally, “we have to refuse the war of the lefts,” she said, asserting that she was “not a candidate to squander the capital of the unit with murderous little phrases. We can diverge without tearing each other apart.” Insubordinate France continues to try to convince its partners in the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) coalition of the need for a common list.
EELV members up to date with contributions – 11,106 at the last count – were invited to vote online from Friday July 7 at 6 a.m. to Monday July 10 at 9 a.m., to validate or invalidate this strategy of an independent list but with the possibility to insert opening personalities in the fall. They voted for 86%.
They were also 80% to vote for the launch in October of a new movement, called Les Ecologistes, a name which should eventually replace the name “EELV”. For statutory reasons, the two names (EELV and Les Ecologistes) will remain for a while, said Ms. Tondelier.
