Photo credit: CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP
This Tuesday morning, the Lille court delivered its verdict in the context of the Quatennens case. The deputy of La France Insoumise (LFI), accused by his ex-companion Céline Quatennens of “ physical and moral violence for several years “, was found guilty of” violence without incapacity committed by spouse ” and ” regular and malicious sending of messages “. He was sentenced to a 4-month suspended prison sentence and to pay 2,000 euros in damages to the victim, as well as 1,500 euros for his lawyers’ fees.
Since the revelations of Chained Duckfollowed by several contradictory statements from those concerned, the management of this case by LFI has always been guided by the principle of relying on justice, pending the verdict to decide on the measures to be taken vis-à-vis the one who was the number 2 of the party. It was therefore on Tuesday that the management of LFI announced by a communicated following the condemnation of the rebellious deputy his ” temporary removal from the LFI-NUPES parliamentary group for a period of 4 months “as well as the conditioning of his return” the commitment to follow an accountability course on violence against women with feminist associations “. A decision far from being unanimous within the movement, as some of the activists and supporters of LFI testified during the hearing.
On the one hand, rebellious activists published a grandstand denouncing the faulty management of the Quatennens affair by LFI and demanding the resignation of the deputy as well as the establishment of a charter concerning gender-based and sexual violence. A position defended in court by the feminist collective We All: “ Adrien Quatennens is an aggressor. And no aggressor has a place in the National Assembly, and we strongly demand his resignation “, explains an activist at the microphone of Mediapart. On social networks, behind the hashtag #QuatennensDmission, many activists have supported this position.
At the same time, elected officials and LFI activists gathered this morning in court to bring the opposing claim. According to a journalist from France Info around fifteen activists are said to have torn off a feminist collage displaying the message “an aggressor cannot be a deputy”. Later, interviewed by The world in court, the mayor of Faches-Thumesnil (Nord) Patrick Proisy explained: “ We hope he comes back. We cannot do without a speaker like Adrien Quatennens in the fight that is preparing for pensions “. At the microphone of Mediaparta rebellious activist echoed the argument initially developed by the management of LFI: “ I understand that he has to go to court […]but we are also here to testify to a fed up: these are elements of his life as a couple made public and distorted. »
It is therefore in a context of strong tensions at the base that the decision of LFI was taken from above to temporarily suspend Adrien Quatennens. It seems to seek to reconcile the two parties in conflict, paving the way for the reinstatement of the deputy while setting conditions in the name of ” feminist principle of taking women’s voices seriously “. In reality, this decision is a continuation of the problematic management of the case by LFI.
By basing its measures on the decision of a patriarchal justice, in the absence of having set up an internal investigation, LFI confirms its intention to exclude any possibility of taking into account the repeated nature of ” physical and moral violence denounced by Céline Quatennens. Only Adrien Quatennens’ version is retained, i.e. the ” slap ” and the ” too many posts to which he had confessed and for which his conviction was expected, although the “severity” of the sentence on such grounds may have come as a surprise.
An orientation which also translates into river maintenance that the MP gave to his local newspaper just hours after the verdict. It is by relying on the rendering of justice and on the speech developed with his lawyeraccording to which ” this sentence is a solemn warning which does not prevent him from rejoining the Assembly and continuing his elective mandate », that the deputy announces that he will not resign.
With a very prepared speech armed with figures aimed at proving the ” media lynching “Which he would be the subject of, Adrien Quatennens places himself as a great victim of the affair and denies the version of his ex-companion as a whole: “ The investigation concluded what I had recognized: a slap given in the context of an argument, more than a year ago and never reproduced, and the sending of too many romantic text messages following a misunderstood divorce announcement . “.
Thus, the temporary political sanctions taken as an extension of the court decision are only there to legitimize the version of the ” contentious divorce ” and some ” marital rift “, initially relayed by the whole of the ruling clique of LFI. This story, erasing the systemic dimension of violence in favor of their individualization and trivialization, as justice demands, prioritizes the reintegration of the rebellious leader to the detriment of the fight against sexist and sexual violence.
Quatennens suspended by LFI, the “repeated violence” put under the carpet