The small group surrounds Sandrine Rousseau. It is made up almost exclusively of women, no more than a dozen. They protect her, console her, form a wall isolating her from the outside. The troupe has just left a bar in Pantin, north of Paris, and is heading slowly towards Dock B, an old concrete warehouse on the edge of the Ourcq canal. This is where, on September 28, 2021, the two finalists in the environmentalist primary for the presidential election, Sandrine Rousseau and Yannick Jadot, must meet in front of the activists. Sandrine Rousseau lost, narrowly. She looks pained. But she is not alone.
Eighteen months and a congress of ecologists later, Sandrine Rousseau is no longer so surrounded. Admittedly, she rose in rank: in June 2022, she was elected deputy for Paris. But those who accompanied her in her fights (primary then congress) have, for the most part, moved away from her. This is the case of the feminist Alice Coffin. If she was not a member of Europe Écologie-Les Verts, the Paris councilor supported Sandrine Rousseau in the primary then during the EELV congress last November. But the member for Paris did not help her when Alice Coffin wished, in vain, to be a candidate on the environmentalist list for the senatorial elections.
Only about fifteen people, including his parliamentary attaché Théo Garcia-Badin, continue to support him. “Sandrine Rousseau does not know how to aggregate around her, testifies a leader of the party. People leave and a few come into his entourage but, in the end, his circle does not widen. »
His personality is in question. Sandrine Rousseau likes to be alone in the photo, both literally and figuratively. “She is very careful to place herself in front when the cameras arrive, she has always been like that”, testifies an environmentalist executive who knows her well. You just have to see her in the Salle des Quatre Colonnes, in the National Assembly, this meeting place between journalists and deputies: Sandrine Rousseau often figures in the images, in a good place. She plays with the light shining on her.
Like Ségolène Royal before her, the ecofeminist provokes a kind of adulation. “Her fans think she will cure scrofula, they adore her but are bound to be disappointed! We confide in the entourage of Yannick Jadot, his opponent in the party’s primary.
She also knows how to organize herself to conquer power. Benjamin Lucas, Generation • s MP, had met her when she was preparing for the convention last fall, as he had met the other green candidates wishing to ally with his party. “She was the one who had the best effect on me, testifies the young deputy from Yvelines. She knows how to build a base and get organized. »
But then it goes bad. Often smiling, the member for Paris does not support the challenge much. “Sandrine, he’s a master corporal!” She surrounds herself with people over whom she has power, testifies an elected official who has long been close. She is convinced to be right, and does not suffer the challenge. So people walk away, disgusted. Another, who tried to work with her during the congress: “She does not exchange, she has a real difficulty in forming a collective, with working methods where everyone can express themselves and, if necessary, vote. Some of his relatives at the EELV congress reproached him in particular for having then passed, with arms and baggage, into the majority of the party, without consulting anyone. “She abdicated,” grumbles a former supporter.
Even within the bodies of EELV, Sandrine Rousseau stands apart. The ecofeminist is a free electron, who snubs the life of the apparatus. While, among environmentalists, we like to discuss endlessly even if we are adversaries before having a drink together, she remains apart. “At the political council, she comes and leaves without greeting anyone, or almost, and her interventions are often offbeat”, testifies a member of the management.
Like, once again, Ségolène Royal before her, Sandrine Rousseau understood the power of shocking declarations. She uses and abuses it, on the barbecue (“a symbol of manhood”) or work (“a right-wing value”). Within EELV, these projections isolate him a little more. “Sandrine Rousseau is forced to split to exist, because the rallying line carried by Marine Tondelier (the new secretary general, editor’s note) drowns her a little. But the activists rightly accuse him of spending more time splitting than gathering, ”observes Alain Coulombel.
In the hemicycle, however, the member for Paris tends to blend into the Nupes. “She’s normalizing,” says one environmental officer. It is true that in terms of buzz, the elected Insoumis give him a hard time. But, here again, Sandrine Rousseau sometimes goes it alone. She thus opened the door to negotiations with LFI for a common list for Europeans, while the line of the environmentalist party, winner at the November congress, is clear: “When it’s no, it’s no”, recalled Marine Tondelier. Sandrine Rousseau did not hear it that way. Is it due to the promise of the Insoumis to entrust the head of the list of a possible common list to an ecologist? Sandrine Rousseau, once again, did she play it personally by already seeing herself there?