“There is no Bayou case. There is no accusation. There is no fact underlying the anathemas that I have heard,” he said in an interview with the World about the accusations of psychological violence against his former companion launched by Sandrine Rousseau on the set of France 5 on September 19.
“She went too far. And everyone measures it,” he says. “We must not confuse feminism and McCarthyism”.
McCarthyism, “is to say: I have lists of men, it is to make accusations that you cannot contradict because there is no investigation”, he adds, recalling having asked four times to be heard by the internal cell at EELV which had self-seized, several months ago, after an email from his former companion.
Asked about the revelation, in an article in Liberation, that he was the subject of “surveillance” by a group of feminist activists, he claims to have “hesitated to file a handrail” in 2019. “I I had to ask a female activist to stop investigating me and especially to peddle rumors and accusations without evidence,” he said.
– “Settling scores” –
“I see it as instrumentalization for a settlement of scores,” he summarizes.
Offensive, the deputy from Paris ensures that he will resume his place on Tuesday on the bench of the National Assembly, with his group, from which he was withdrawn from the presidency. “I have a mandate, I intend to carry it out,” he warns, two days before the EELV parliamentary days scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Strasbourg.
On Monday, neither he nor Adrien Quatennens, deputy of La France insoumise targeted by an investigation for violence against his wife, sat during the return to parliament.
Evoking “a pathetic spectacle”, a “deviation” of feminism, a “crusade”, Julien Bayou also criticizes the functioning of the internal unit for the fight against sexist and sexual violence set up within EELV following the Baupin affair, of which Mrs. Rousseau was one of the victims.
This cell, in which sits one of the women who watched Julien Bayou, and who has not heard from Mr. Bayou’s ex-companion until now, is “necessary but it is fundamentally insufficient” and moreover it “does not replace justice”. “The most serious sanction that it can pronounce is the exclusion of EELV. It cannot claim either to say the right or to pronounce repair. We stumble on an impasse”, he believes.
The former companion of the deputy finally asked Monday to be heard, “under certain conditions ensuring the security of the testimonies”.
Mr. Bayou also questions the effectiveness of such a structure in the case of the party’s national secretary: “Would I be cleared, it looks like there was collusion. Would I be sanctioned, it would be interpreted as a settling of accounts before the party’s congress in December during which he was to give way to the head of the party.
Several motions are anticipated, including one led by Marine Tondelier, close to the line of Julien Bayou, and another by Mélissa Camara, close to Sandrine Rousseau. The two diverge in particular on the strength of the links to be maintained with the Nupes, in particular in the context of the European elections of 2024.
Asked about this speech by Mr. Bayou, the first secretary of the socialist party Olivier Faure estimated on franceinfo that Sandrine Rousseau “should not have been spokesperson for a case of which she ultimately does not know much. “.
