With Marine Tondelier, everything is green. At the entrance to her entirely green-furnished office, tucked away in her party’s new headquarters at the end of a cul-de-sac in Paris’s 11th arrondissement of Paris, the leader of Les Ecologistes, the French Greens, has set up a rolling clothes rack. Hanging there are all her malachite-colored blazers, including one given to her by the animal rights group PETA, made entirely of viscose, a plant-based plastic. A bit too flashy for her taste.
This colorful piece of clothing has become her political and media signature, and she loves talking about it. The jacket, she says, has come to symbolize a «value» for those seeking an alliance of France’s left-wing parties, a unitary movement she has sought to embody. «My outfit had become a transitional object, as psychoanalysts say. The equivalent of a comfort blanket for left-wing adults anxious about the ongoing legislative elections,» she explained, before wondering: «Am I being listened to because of what I say, or because of what I wear?»
She even devoted an entire chapter to her blazer in her new book, which she says is «not like the others.» The book, which in 20 days has sold 963 copies out of the 18,000 printed, is not a «platform,» she promises. «People are already nice enough to take the leaflets we hand them at markets, so we’re not going to try to sell them, too. Who would buy a platform for €20? I wanted to write a feel-good book, something that gives energy, against the general sense of resignation.»
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