“We were slow to implement an internal version.”
In May 2016, at the time of the release of accusations of sexual assault against Denis Baupin, Julien Bayou was spokesperson for EELV.
He recognized and regretted his party's slowness in setting up an internal support unit for potential victims.
Six years later, he claims to be himself a victim of this structure finally formed.
Monday morning at dawn, judging the situation
"untenable"
, Julien Bayou resigned from his mandates as national secretary and co-president of the group in the Assembly.
A clap of thunder on the left and among environmentalists, even if the outcome was predictable.
All the more violent as it takes place at the same time as the affair of the LFI deputy Adrien Quatennens, author of domestic violence.
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Last Monday, with the consent of the alleged victim, EELV deputy Sandrine Rousseau accused Julien Bayou, on the set of France 5, of
"behaviour likely to break the moral health of women"
.
Without further details.
The case actually concerns the ex-companion of the resigning national secretary, who made a suicide attempt at the end of June and sent a letter to executives of the management of EELV to warn them of the alleged behavior of Julien Bayou.
The tensions between them stem from a harsh separation a few months earlier.
In July,
Le Figaro
had mentioned the seizure, on this case, of the internal cell of the party.
When questioned, Julien Bayou had defended himself from all sexist or sexual violence or even from
“inappropriate behavior, towards anyone”
.
"Kafka in the age of social networks"
He had deplored
“a story that ends in suffering and a break that is accompanied by barely veiled threats against me and a form of instrumentalization that I can only deplore”
.
The affair, however, had remained a dead letter, until Sandrine Rousseau took hold of it.
The pressure is rising internally.
On Sunday, the ex-candidate of environmentalists for the presidency, Yannick Jadot, thus judged that “for the serenity of the
internal
investigation” , it would be
“of good intelligence (…) that we accelerate his withdrawal from the secretariat EELV National Board”
.
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Monday morning, therefore, it was done.
But Julien Bayou does not seem to have said his last word.
In a letter to activists, he denounced a
"grotesque"
situation , evoking
"Kafka in the age of social networks"
and denouncing an action
"politically instrumentalized"
.
The member for Paris will speak in the coming days.
In the meantime, his lawyer, Me Marie Dosé, directly pointed to Sandrine Rousseau, internal political opponent of Julien Bayou for the upcoming congress.
The situation is tense among environmentalists.
The majority has just been disavowed in an internal vote.
Their congress could therefore be postponed for several months, giving Sandrine Rousseau's current time to increase the number of members in its favor.
Me Marie Dosé denounced a
“vulgar unpacking”
of private life
“unworthy of a society as advanced as ours
.
Julien Bayou
, she added,
notes, with bitterness and anger, the instrumentalization of the just fight against sexual and gender-based violence for political purposes.
