They admit to still “groping” in the face of the management of cases of gender-based violence within the movement. However, LFI deputies defended themselves on Tuesday for having “procrastinated” on the withdrawal of their colleague Adrien Quatennens because of domestic violence.
“No one dithered to say that Adrien Quatennens should be withdrawn”, assured the press the deputy LFI Clémentine Autain, questioned on the fact that Jean-Luc Mélenchon had reiterated his “confidence” in the young deputy, arousing internal criticism.
The limits of “total transparency”
To manage cases of gender-based violence, “we are trying to put mechanisms in place, it is not perfect”, admitted the deputy, during the back-to-school press conference of her political group in the Assembly, considering it necessary “to work further on these issues and perhaps in a cross-partisan way”.
Clémentine Autain, however, considered that it was necessary to recognize the “complexity” of such situations, requiring respect for the presumption of innocence of the defendants, to take into account the difficulty on a human level of dealing with the case of “comrades” or yet respect for the victims. She also underlined the limits of “total transparency”, in reference to the declarations the day before of the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau, saying that she had received a woman accusing the national secretary of EELV Julien Bayou of “behavior likely to break the moral health women “.
“We assume failures”
“When I hear Sandrine Rousseau yesterday [dire] for example that the ex-girlfriend of Julien Bayou whom she received herself (…) made a suicide attempt, I don’t know if this woman wants all of France to know that she made an attempt suicide,” she said.
“Yes, we assume that we are groping, that it is a difficult question”, declared for her part the deputy LFI Danièle Obono, also questioned on the management by her movement of cases of gender-based or sexual violence. “We assume to have failures, not to have a perfect protocol”.
“Mandatory” training
Danièle Obono stressed that the LFI deputies were going to attend “compulsory” training on gender-based and sexual violence during their parliamentary days scheduled for Thursday and Friday to prepare for the start of the parliamentary term.
Figure of the young guard of La France insoumise (LFI), the deputy Adrien Quatennens, under investigation after a handrail filed for domestic violence, announced Sunday that he was “withdrawing from his function as coordinator of the movement, acknowledging violence against his wife.