- "Populist tea towels", is it too much?
- Yes, it's too much.
The Internet never forgets anything. Sometimes, past images reappear and strike head-on with news. This is precisely what is happening for the Minister Delegate in charge of Citizenship Marlène Schiappa, the day after the broadcast of the investigation on Nicolas Hulot, Thursday evening in the program Envoy special on France 2, in which several women claim to be victims of the former Minister of Ecological and Inclusive Transition. Two new testimonies have been added since, two days after Nicolas Hulot went on the set of BFMTV to indicate that the statements which would be broadcast the next day were “false”.
Nicolas Hulot is not the only one concerned by all the messages posted on social networks.
An excerpt from a previous Special Envoy document, showing Marlène Schiappa working with her advisers in 2018, is also very shared.
The one who was then Secretary of State in charge of equality between women and men is working on the language elements that will show her support for Nicolas Hulot.
" I do not know what to say "
The minister was then the subject of an investigation published in 2018 in the weekly Ebdo, which no longer exists today.
This investigation delivered in particular the testimony of a woman who said to have been the victim of a rape in 1997. Nicolas Hulot had initially lodged a complaint for defamation, before retracting.
Yesterday Marlène Schiappa specified that she supported the voice of women.
But in 2018, when the first rape accusation targeting Nicolas Hulot came out, the one who was then Secretary of State for Gender Equality had a completely different speech ... ⬇️ # Daily pic.twitter.com/6X4TkFkOzK
- Daily (@Qofficiel) November 25, 2021
In her office, facing two advisers, Marlène Schiappa applies herself to translating into action what would emanate from a direct request from the top of the State: to show her support for the Minister of State. The government, at the time, united around the minister but she still did not speak. “The lack of expression on your part, he's starting to see himself,” a colleague tells him. Marlène Schiappa, in the image, does not hide a certain dismay. “I don't know either this business or anything. I don't know what to say, ”she concedes.
Despite everything, the communication plan is set in motion.
The little ministerial hands are developing an action plan.
This takes place in two stages.
The first touches on the image.
The Minister sits next to Nicolas Hulot in the National Assembly during questions to the government.
Then, something that almost never happens, the two colleagues decide to leave the room through the room of the Four Columns, the one where all the journalists wait.
A support platform
The second is done in the Journal du Dimanche. On February 10, 2018, Marlène Schiappa published a column in support of Nicolas Hulot, entitled "Why the accusers of Nicolas Hulot flout the words of women". After having taken care to indicate that rape "is too serious an affair to be used politically", Marlène Schiappa literally dismisses the article of Ebdo, the judge "irresponsible" and implies a political orientation. Without going so far as to speak of a "populist rag", as she had submitted the idea to her advisers. “Too much”.
Contacted this Friday, the minister's entourage defends themselves from any breach three years ago.
This forum does not imply that "the victim is lying" as deplored at the time by Laurence Rossignol, predecessor of Marlène Schiappa at the ministry in charge of women's rights.
“You cannot trace a reaction from 2018 on facts revealed in 2021 and not known at the time, we are told.
It is not Hulot that she supported, it is the rule of law: justice goes to the courts.
"