Adrien Quatennens has been reinstated in the parliamentary group La France insoumise (LFI) in the National Assembly after four months of suspension, the group announced in a press release on Tuesday April 11. “There was a vote,” said LFI deputy for Seine-Maritime Alma Dufour.
The deputy from the North had been sidelined after being sentenced in December to a four-month suspended prison sentence by the Lille Criminal Court for domestic violence. He had made his return to the National Assembly in mid-January, as a non-registered.
In anticipation of the end of the sanction by his peers, a joint group of four people had been responsible for hearing him before reporting on the exchange during a meeting of the office, organized on Monday. In particular, the group had to check whether the conditions imposed on Mr. Quatennens in anticipation of his return – including participation in an internship on violence against women – had been respected. “It emerges from the exchanges with Adrien Quatennens that the latter is engaged in an internship, in the process of being finalized, meeting the expected criteria”, specifies the press release.
The MP also said “to regret the media expressions he had following his conviction” and “acknowledges that some of his remarks had the effect, without his intention, of relativizing the gravity of the facts and to reverse the culpability between the author and the victim of violence”, continues the group.
A divisive affair
The case begins in September, after the revelation by Le Canard enchaîné of a handrail filed by the wife of Adrien Quatennens, Céline Quatennens. Then number two of La France insoumise, Mr. Quatennens announced that he was stepping back from his duties as party coordinator. In a press release, he mentions “disputes” since his wife told him of her desire to divorce, and admits having “gave him a slap”, saying he “deeply regretted this gesture”.
In November, Celine Quatennens comes out of her silence. Accusing her husband of “minimizing” the facts and “discrediting” her person, she denounces “physical and moral violence” that she says she has suffered for “several years”. Charges denied by Mr. Quatennens.
The affair has sharply divided within La France insoumise and, more broadly, among the elected representatives of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes). The deputy from the North had notably benefited from the support of Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “I tell him my confidence and my affection”, declared the former deputy shortly after the revelations of the Canard enchaîné. Several members of LFI demanded, for their part, his exclusion from the “insubordinate” ranks and from the Nupes.
Several deputies of the movement demanded a “review clause” concerning the decision to suspend for four months, after a television interview with Adrien Quatennens in December, in which he detailed the circumstances of the slap in the face to his wife and seemed, according to a deputy , “reversing the assaulted/aggressor relationship”.