The reactions of his Melenchonian peers are eloquent: among these women’s rights activists, the respect due to the comrade who has become an essential cog in their movement takes precedence over the condemnation of the slap in the face or the laptop confiscated from his wife.
Because the big redhead in the eternal suit on a white shirt symbolized the young generation, already seasoned, that Jean-Luc Mélenchon prided himself on having brought up. The former presidential candidate himself poured into bitterness by denouncing “police malice, media voyeurism, social networks”, hailing on the contrary Adrien Quatennens’ “dignity” and “courage”, and repeating his “trust” and his “affection”.
Even recently, a historical Mélenchonist said of the deputy from the North: “He is young, intelligent, talented”. And he added about the presidential election of 2027: “He thinks about it and he would be wrong not to think about it”.
Adrien Quatennens did not hide it, the day after the presidential election, saying in a media that “the sooner the better” for the succession of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
And within the other parliamentary groups, some have not hesitated to rebroadcast on Twitter the sequence of an Adrien Quatennens vilifying the government for its softness with regard to violence against women.
– “Generation Mélenchon” –
From his victory by a few dozen votes over LREM executive Christophe Itier in 2017, in the first constituency of Lille, everything had happened quickly for Adrien Quatennens, until then a teleconsultant in the energy sector.
First the revelation in the hemicycle, through his speech in July 2017, about the ordinances on the Labor Code made by Minister Muriel Pénicaud: he had accused her of “premeditated murder of the Labor Code” and him had launched “You say that the problem of the Labor Code is its thickness. Do you find that the directory is too thick? In this case, which pages should be torn out?”
Then Adrien Quatennens benefited from the public praise of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He reported that in their interviews, the young deputy encouraged him to adopt a strategy of quiet strength: to be radical and implacable, to be sure, but without exuberance or scattering. A behavior that Mr. Quatennens himself adopted on the many television sets where he was invited.
His appointment to the coordination of La France insoumise, in 2019 to raise the movement of internal crises and the failure of the European elections, looked like consecration. But it was actually the beginning of a period of greater discretion. “He has advanced certain internal projects,” assured a LFI executive a few weeks ago.
In the National Assembly, Mr. Quatennens continued to speak regularly, but with less technical work than before. Jean-Luc Mélenchon therefore more often greeted the one to whom he will leave the presidency of the group of deputies, Mathilde Panot.
In 2021, Adrien Quatennens nevertheless publishes “Génération Mélenchon” (Seuil), in which he sets himself up as a model disciple – and a model successor.
Father of a three-year-old girl, Adrien Quatennens was born on May 23, 1990 in Lille and has been active since the age of 15. This rock lover, fan of Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine and drummer in his spare time, then became active in associations helping the homeless, then joined the alter-globalist NGO Attac.
In 2012, seduced by the triptych “ecology, socialism, Republic” of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he supported the campaign of the presidential candidate then joined the Left Party, avant-garde of LFI, the following year. Ten years later, his steady rise, marked by easy re-election in the legislative elections last June, came to an abrupt end.
