Publié le 6 octobre 2021 sur The New Statesman.
The vice president of Nantes on why she believes the Greens’ Yannick Jadot is the right candidate to bring France together.
In 2004 Julie Laernoes moved from the Netherlands to France to study. Three years later she joined the French Green party. Since 2014 she has served as vice president of Nantes, France’s sixth largest city and the choice of many Parisians looking for a cheaper and greener alternative to the City of Light. But Laernoes’ focus is much wider than traditional écolo voters. She wants to widen the party’s support base, underlining its environmental and social credentials. She believes that Yannick Jadot, recently elected as the Greens’ candidate for the French 2022 presidential elections, is the right man to bring these two agendas – and an increasingly divided France – together.
“I voted for Yannick as he is credible and prepared,” said Laernoes, speaking to me in the café of Mundo Madou, a sustainable office space in Brussels. She was in the Belgian capital for a meeting in her role as a board member of Energy Cities. “He is the best candidate to attract a larger audience. People don’t want endless talk and he has proven he can act.”…
