There was a demining operation on Tuesday morning among environmentalists after a week agitated by new accusations of rape and sexual assault targeting Nicolas Hulot, then by the ousting of Matthieu Orphelin, a pillar of Yannick Jadot’s campaign . Orphan, until then coordinator of spokespersons for the candidate and former close to the ex-star of TF1, was put “in withdrawal” on Saturday. At the green staff, it was considered that this proximity was detrimental to “the serenity necessary for the exercise of its functions”. A decision hailed for her “courage” by Sandrine Rousseau, whose compliments for her former primary opponent are still rare.
Matthieu Orphelin, for his part, little tasted a sidelining that he found “inelegant” and made it known. He explained above all in a press release that all this was only a pretext after he had mentioned to Yannick Jadot the differences and his wish to “end his functions” given “his non-adherence to his strategic choices ”. What surprised the ecologists, who had never heard such criticism from someone so close to Jadot. “I understand that it is difficult for him, one has the impression that he did that to leave like a prince…”, tries to analyze a chosen one.
Remote setting
By his presence this Tuesday morning at the weekly press briefing of the spokespersons of the environmental candidate, Mounir Satouri, the campaign director of Yannick Jadot wanted to calm a situation quickly mounted in the towers. The boss of the campaign has, of course, assumed the press release on Saturday that he “personally drafted”. But, like Matthieu Orphelin on Monday night in C to you, on France 5, Mounir Satouri especially insisted on the importance of the fight against violence against women.
History to regain the initiative and to be irreproachable on the subject, he even asked the President of the Republic to withdraw his legion of honor to Nicolas Hulot. “It is a symbol that we owe to women.” During the press conference, Mounir Satouri repeatedly stressed that the former minister had long been “the favorite personality of the French”. Understand: everyone was wrong about it, not just the green people.
Not a “psychodrama”
For Jadot’s team, the turmoil of recent days is not a “psychodrama”. And the spokespersons to unroll the candidate’s agenda for the next few days. “We have a precise plan, a method, a phasing of the campaign to go to the second round and to win,” says Benjamin Lucas. Only the Covid-19 pandemic “re-examines this strategy”, concedes Mounir Satouri. Implied: not Matthieu Orphelin. We could nevertheless note that, during the press conference, the spokespersons insisted on the mobilization of the ground. Precisely one of the criticisms formulated by the deputy in C to you Monday evening.
But while pretending to turn the page, Mounir Satouri surprisingly opened the door to a return of Matthieu Orphelin, asserting that there was no “rupture of the exchange”: “Let us leave time, we will see in the coming weeks. “
An uncertain symbol on the issue of the fight against violence against women. Alice Coffin, EELV advisor in Paris close to Sandrine Rousseau, wants to believe the former spokesperson when he says he did not know anything. But she blames him, like others, for not being “able to say” we made a huge mistake in praising this man again after the first revelations ofEbdo”. However, it is also this notoriety and this aura of Nicolas Hulot that has prevented us from believing the words of women. “A return of Matthieu Orphelin in the campaign would be” inconsistent “if Yannick Jadot wants to have a” feminist campaign “. “It’s never a good idea, ” returns from ”,” she concludes.