After a disputed investiture in the 9th constituency of the capital, the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau very easily reached the second round of the legislative elections, Sunday June 12, obtaining 42.90% of the vote. She will find there the candidate of the presidential coalition, Buon Tan (26.77% of the vote).
The 50-year-old eco-feminist is thus getting closer to the Palais-Bourbon, after his investiture in the constituency was highly contested by another environmental contender, Claire Monod, former regional councilor for the Ile-de-France region, who claimed a long-standing local presence, and candidate in 2017. She was backed by the support of local activists expressed during two consultations, before the management of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) decided to invest Sandrine Rousseau in the past framework with the other left-wing parties for the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes).
The candidate beaten by Yannick Jadot in the Greens’ primary for the presidential election in September 2021, familiar with media outlets and sensational proposals, such as that of creating a crime of non-sharing of domestic tasks, was noticed by her critics repeatedly from candidate Jadot. She ended up being dropped from the Greens’ presidential campaign team.
Regarding her candidacy in the 9th constituency of Paris, “I do not quite understand the adventure”, declared Ms. Monod in March to Liberation, wondering about the parachuting of her competitor: “Why did you choose a constituency in which there is already had a wife racing? She [Sandrine Rousseau] plays it really old-fashioned. His only goal is to have power in his hands. The applicant claimed new Parisian ties linked to the schooling of her children and the work of her husband. With Marianne, Claire Monod had gone so far as to accuse Ms. Rousseau of “ecopopulism”, carrying a “simplifying speech” to a “base of the faithful”.
The two Sandrine Rousseau
The Nupes candidate will also have had to contend with competition from a namesake invested by Le Mouvement de la ruralité (LMR), formerly named Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions (CPNT). That two Sandrine Rousseau find themselves in competition owed nothing to chance, had recognized with Le Monde Jérôme Juvigny, president LMR of Cantal, who had said to see there “a way of marking our ideological difference with punitive ecology or even the opposition between men and women”. The environmentalist Sandrine Rousseau had denounced “fascist methods” aimed at “silencing” her.
Claire Monod had commented on the episode with a joke as crisp as it was bitter on Twitter: “I support Sandrine Rousseau”, she had written, taking care not to specify which of the two she was talking about.
The second round will see the environmental candidate face off against Buon Tan, the outgoing deputy of La République en Marche. He won in 2017 with 55.26% of the vote in the second round, against the candidate of La France insoumise, Raphaël Qnouch (44.74%). At the time, the left presented itself disunited, with the candidacies in the first round of Claire Monod and Mr. Qnouch, but also those of the socialist Martin Lagane and the communist Jean-Noël Aqua. Nothing like this year, where Sandrine Rousseau has not suffered from dissident candidacies for Nupes.
In this constituency which corresponds to part of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, where a large Asian community lives, Emmanuel Macron garnered more than 82% of the votes in the second round of the presidential election, against Marine Le Pen. In the first round, however, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was far ahead, with 36.35% of the vote.
