Yannick Jadot, the MP-activist who wants to reconnect with the great hours of political ecology

Paris – He had for a few months embodied political ecology in a presidential 2017 bitter taste. Today Yannick Jadot, 50, hopes to raise the green flag to the Europeans, with particular emphasis on civil society.
  

" We can reach the 15% " in the European ballot next spring, he says. The ambition seems great, while recent polls credit an EELV list of 5 to 6% of the votes.

But the new head of list badumes: " There is the place " to remake the blow of 2009, where the political ecology had prospered to European (16,2%), with heads Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Eva Joly, José Bové and arrived less than a year earlier from Greenpeace, Yannick Jadot.

" He always tried to bring a stronger ecology, more heard, with the will to be if possible the one who carries it ", tells Pascal Durand, ecologist MEP.

A " convinced ecologist ", a " beating, a tribune " recognizes him Michèle Rivasi, his competitor for the top of the list – and his opponent already at the the nomination contest for the last presidential election. Yannick Jadot then won, after also eliminating the former minister Cécile Duflot, yet much more publicized.

– The " wager lost " –

The presidential election brought to Yannick Jadot an increase of notoriety, but also reproaches, after he announced, without awaiting the agreement of the militants , his rallying to the PS candidate Benoît Hamon – " a real awkwardness ", he admits, and a " lost bet ", the current leader of Generations having gathered than 6% of the votes.

This time, no question of applying the same recipe, while the Europeans are one of the " only elections where we vote by membership ", says Mr. Jadot, focusing on opening up to civil society, as in 2009.

" José Bové it was the GMOs, me it was Greenpeace, Dany Cohn-Bendit it was the European fight, Eva Joly it was the tax havens (…) No one could dispute their sincerity "he recalls.

" Political ecology can not be rebuilt only within the environmental movement that composes it today.It will need opening, enlargement ".

" The thing he needs to improve is teamwork ," warns a member of the party. Michèle Rivasi, it, emphasizes that " it plays more collective " since the presidential one.

" It is possible ", acknowledges the person, recalling that he had agreed to " fade " behind Benoît Hamon last year.

– From the anchor to the hemicycle –

Born on July 27, 1967, Yannick Jadot made his debut in politics by participating in the creation of the movement " La Déferlante " in 1986 A student in economics at Dauphine, he finds himself in charge of organizing the tribute event to Malik Oussein. After humanitarian experiences in Burkina Faso, Gabon and Bangladesh in the 1990s, he joined the NGO Solagral (Solidarity Agriculture and Food), specialized in monitoring international negotiations.

After a brief stint with the Mamère Christmas campaign in 2002, he became head of Greenpeace France's campaign. " Upon my arrival, (…) I find myself hanging on the anchor of a ship that the crew of the Rainbow Warrior II has just approached," he says in a book in 2014. He participated in the creation of " the Alliance for the planet " and took part in Grenelle de l'Environnement in 2007.

Then the activist takes the political cap. Some rants, – one of his diatribes against the CETA is 1.8 million views on Facebook – and his outspokenness detonate, especially when he calls the government to recognize the " bullshit " Notre-Dame-des-Landes.

He " has real environmental convictions ", but he " lacks a little capacity for political badysis ", judge Yves Contbadot, adviser of Paris double hat EELV -Generations, who imagines " a need for revenge " after Jadot came very close to a ministerial post in 2012.

" Yannick (…) really wanted to be minister "but" in a political will to act, to weigh ", explains Pascal Durand.

The applicant categorically refutes any " frustration " of not having been a minister. " I am bursting into the European Parliament, (…) we are tearing victories ," says the one who imagines a return to civil society after politics.

" I hope that I will never be one of those who no longer find other horizons than that of politics ".