"I think I am the first feminist presidential candidate: it is already an event", insists Sandrine Rousseau, determined to make her difference heard.
For the moment the only declared candidate for the open primary of environmentalists, which is to take place in September, the ex-spokesperson and ex-number 2 of Europe Ecology-the Greens (EELV) is convinced that it can upset the duel announced between the two main contenders of his camp: the MEP Yannick Jadot and the mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle.
And why not create a surprise in this consultation where, twice, in 2011 and 2016, the green favorites were swept away?
Its reappearance in the fall of 2020 has already surprised, after "a break" of three years.
In 2017, the Lille academic comes out of several trying months after publicly accusing Denis Baupin, then EELV vice-president of the National Assembly, of harassment and sexual assault, along with three other women.
"The explosion that followed was hard to take: it was not the same atmosphere as today" she recalls.
An experience that she will recount in the book “Parler” (Ed. Flammarion) where she encourages women victims to no longer be silent.
The book came out in September 2017 ... a few weeks before the emergence of the #MeToo movement.
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"I think that I can be credited with a form of political sensitivity on what is happening in society," insists the one who also created the association Parler at the end of 2017 to encourage victims of sexual violence to lodge a complaint, structure today established in ten cities.
“She is a woman of integrity, courageous, who never does things by halves.
She is in a realistic radicalism and makes a lot of efforts to find applicable solutions whatever the subjects ”greets Hélène Hardy, election delegate at EELV, her friend for ten years.
"She has a real lack of notoriety", according to an EELV executive
But among environmentalists, if many qualify his candidacy as "legitimate", it does not trigger crazy enthusiasm.
"It's good that a woman is a candidate, moreover I hope that others will declare themselves, but she has a real lack of notoriety", loose an EELV executive.
Another recalls, treacherous, that head of the regional list in 2015 in Hauts-de-France, it had collected barely 5% of the vote: "A fiasco, one of the worst scores of regional ecologists".
The person concerned is annoyed that we may not take her seriously or see in her approach only an application for testimony.
"I was deputy national secretary of a large party, I have been an environmental economist for twenty years, vice-president of the largest university in France in terms of number of students: I think I have strengths to put forward in this primary and I will be happy to debate with my competitors, ”she explains.
For a "total overhaul of our mode of consumption and production"
On the merits precisely, she defends a "total overhaul of our mode of consumption and production", the end of the Fifth Republic, the establishment of a basic income ... "We need a renewed social contract, and this It's not because my name is Rousseau that I'm saying that, ”she jokes, referring to the Enlightenment philosopher to whom we owe“ Du Contrat social ”.
Politically, she is open to discussions with the Socialists, but also with La France Insoumise, which brings her closer to Eric Piolle than to Yannick Jadot who wants to occupy the space between Mélenchon and Macron.
Ideas that she will defend by starting a tour of France to meet "field activists".
This Sunday, she will host an “ecofeminism marathon”, a 12-hour virtual event where figures of this current will debate, which brings together its two main fights.
The next day, Monday March 8, this mother of three will celebrate her 49th birthday.
A date that coincides each year with the International Day of Women's Rights.
Quite a symbol for Sandrine Rousseau who adopted as a campaign slogan “yes, times are changing”.
"It is incredible that there has never been a woman president," she laments.
If I win, very interesting things can happen.
"