The accusations of violence against women against two top members of the left-green alliance in France have caused a crisis.
Adrien Quatennens of France Unbowed (LFI) resigned from his position as party coordinator on Sunday after admitting to assaulting his wife.
After being accused of psychologically abusing his ex-partner, Green MP Julien Bayou was relegated to co-leader of his party’s parliamentary caucus and suspended a few days later.
The charges are being looked into by his party.
The left-wing alliance has been accused of “total hypocrisy” by the far-right National Rally (RN) for its stance on gender-based violence.
The two parties form part of an alliance of far-left, left, and green parties which came together to form the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nupes) and secured more than a quarter of the votes in June’s parliamentary elections, depriving President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government of its majority in the National Assembly.
Mr Quatennens, 32, is a prominent MP and was seen as a potential successor to Jean-Luc Mélenchon as leader of the France Unbowed (LFI) party.
Mr Mélenchon’s response to the allegations against his colleague has sparked anger. He saluted the “dignity and courage” of Mr Quatennens in a social media post on Sunday, saying the MP had his “confidence and affection”. Only later did he expressly acknowledge the experiences of his wife, saying in a subsequent post that a slap was unacceptable in all cases.
The allegations against Mr Bayou first emerged in July, but he was only suspended from his leadership role in the Greens after his party colleague Sandrine Rousseau was asked about them in a television appearance on Monday. Women’s rights activists had taken to Twitter to demand that action be taken.
She said Mr Bayou’s ex-partner had been very depressed and referred to behavior that would be likely to “break” the mental health of a woman.
Another Green MP, Sandra Regol, said it had been a collective decision by the party in response to “legitimate questions” from women, feminists, and victims.
Both parties came under fire from their political opponents. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said in response to Mr Mélenchon’s comments that it was “extremely shocking” to have someone minimizing domestic violence, while Jordan Bardella of the far-right RN criticized the left for “setting itself up as a model of virtue” while being caught up in such allegations.
