The ecologist Yannick Jadot still does not lower his voice against TotalEnergie. For the candidate, the oil group wants to “silence him in the middle of the presidential election campaign”. “These lobbies that run the country, that’s enough,” he said. on Franceinfolambasting the CEO of TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné “who intends to dictate energy policy to France, who comments on the presidential campaign”.
The day before, TotalEnergies had announced that it was suing the environmental candidate for defamation after his accusations of “complicity in war crimes” in Ukraine. “Unacceptable remarks”, “extremely serious and unfounded” according to the group concerning its presence in Russia.
Jadot denounces “the absolute cynicism” of Pouyanné
“For 30 years, the threats of lobbies have never stopped”, but “ecologists will not back down”, insisted Yannick Jadot. “We will have to damn, in the next five years, to clean up the conflicts of interest between the private and the general interest”. He reiterated his accusations against the French oil group. “I confirm, I persist: I accuse TotalEnergies of being complicit in war crimes in Ukraine,” he said, relying on article 25 of the statutes of the International Criminal Court.
He also relied on the fact that, according to him, the group has “knowledge of the facts”, since it “works with Russian partners closely linked to the highest summit of the Putinian state”, and that “through its activities, it contributes to finance groups closely linked to this war”.
Yannick Jadot denounced “the absolute cynicism” of Patrick Pouyanné who, “sobs in his voice, talks to us about his employees”, but is in fact “angry on behalf of his shareholders”. “He talks about his employees and the fighters in Ukraine, but the only way to help these Ukrainian fighters (…) is to embargo Russian gas and oil,” repeated the candidate. “We cannot look at the bombings of pediatric hospitals, theaters, the major humanitarian crisis and say to ourselves ‘by the end of the year I will make a small gesture'”, he insisted.