Jacques Boutault

Jacques Boutault (born 4 January 1961) is a French politician member of Europe Écologie Les Verts (EELV) and the mayor of the 2nd arrondissement of Paris between 2001 and 2020.

The son of a Republican Guard and of a seamstress, he co-founded the first high school Comité d'action lycéen, in 1978 at the Joliot-Curie high school in Nanterre, he first campaigned in associations such as Droit devant !!, Greenpeace, Les Amis de la Terre and Attac.

After a graduate diploma at the School of Advanced Studies in Information and Communication (Celsa Paris IV-Sorbonne), he worked for ten years as a journalist (L'Usine nouvelle, Challenges, Liaisons sociales, Rebondir…)). In 1995, he was recruited to create the press service of Unédic, then in 1998 he took charge of the Internal Communication Department, which he left in 2009. He now holds a part-time job in the Pôle emploi as an advisor to the Directorate-General for sustainable development. He wrote a book about unemployment insurance, for the Que sais-je? collection.

Until 1996, in a close-knit team of amateur journalists, he published La Riposte, a fanzine devoted to politics, sex and drugs.

In 1996, with Jean-Paul Maurel, he created the association "Bien vivre dans le 2e arrondissement", which brings together residents committed to improving the quality of life in their neighborhood in terms of transport, housing and education.

He joined the Green party in 1997.

Close to the left wing of this party, and opposed to the participation of the environmental movement in the government of Lionel Jospin, Jacques Boutault was then delegated to the departmental council of Paris (1998 to 2001) and member of the inter-regional national council from 2001 to 2003.

Jacques Boutault is running for municipal elections in the second arrondissement of Paris in 2001 with a program focused on improving traffic, social housing, setting up organic and vegetarian menus in school canteens, working with associations.

On 11 March 2001, he won 16.78% of the vote in the borough.

He was outdistanced by the socialist candidate Pierre Schapira, who nevertheless withdrew, according to the Parisian electoral agreement of reciprocal withdrawal with the socialist party.

Both lists merge into a new one, led by Boutault who then wins the election in the second round by 300 votes ahead of the list of outgoing mayor, Benoîte Taffin.

He focuses its policy on strengthening solidarity actions with the most deprived, organic meals in canteens, improving living conditions and the environment and developing citizen participation through participatory democracy.

His relations with the socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, are nevertheless tense.

At the end of 2007, Jacques Boutault published a column in the daily Le Monde where he challenged the posture of the mayor of Paris which consisted in overaking the municipal achievements of environmentalists while criticizing them harshly.

He is involved with poorly housed families who occupy Rue de la Banque (2nd), from October to December 2007.

On 30 January 2008, during a public meeting, Bertrand Delanoë suggests that the mayor Green of the 2nd arrondissement organized "smoking pot parties" in his office and very much hopes that the socialist candidate in the 2nd arrondissement, Sylvie Wieviorka, will marginalize the list of Greens during the municipal elections of 2008.

In the first round of the 2008 municipal elections, the Greens list led by Jacques Boutault, gathered 29.93% of the vote, and made almost equal play with that made up of the Socialist Party of the French Communist Party, the Republican and Citizen Movement and the Radical Party on the left, led by Sylvie Wieviorka, who won 33.12% of the vote.

Its list is notably supported by the inhabitants or professionals working in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris like: Gérard Depardieu, Sapho, Guy Bedos, Sanseverino, Martine Billard and also by Raphaël Mezrahi, Renaud, Dominique Belpomme, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Albert Jacquard, etc..

The reciprocal withdrawal agreements in all the Parisian districts being renewed by Bertrand Delanoë, he took the lead of the merged list for the second round.

On 16 March 2008, the list he led reached 68.34% of the vote, a score never achieved by the left in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris.

As the leader for the ENVIE motion (18.96% of the votes) at the first EÉLV congress in La Rochelle in 2011, he was elected to the federal council and to the movement's political orientation council.

In June 2012, he published a press book called Mon Pari (s) vert, at Éditions Presse Pluriel, in which he retraces his personal political journey, explains his convictions in matters of political ecology and announces his intention to run for mayor of Paris in 2014.

He is a candidate in the legislative election of June 2012 in the 1st district of Paris which regroups the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 9th arrondissements of the capital.

It ranks third, collecting 6.05% of the votes cast.

At the Caen congress in November 2013, he was the male leader of La motion participative (LMP) alongside Lucile Schmid.

LMP (of which Yves Cochet, Karima Delli and Alain Lipietz are members) is in second position with 20.58% of the votes.

He integrates the executive office, the direction of the movement, and takes charge of relations with associative actors and the cooperative network.

On 14 March 2013, he declared his candidacy for the head of the EÉLV list for the 2014 municipal elections in Paris.

In the March 2014 elections, with a score of 32.96%, the list of Jacques Boutault outstripped the list of the UMP (24.25%) and the Socialist Party (22.82%) in the first round.

A dissident UMP list achieved 11.01% while the Front de Gauche stood at 2.8%.

In the second round, the environmentalist and citizen, Socialist and Left Front list came out on top with 58.24% of the vote.

Jacques Boutault was re-elected mayor of the 2nd arrondissement for the third time in April 2014.

He participated on Saturday, 19 July 2014 in a demonstration of support for the Palestinian people of Gaza, banned by the police headquarters "because of the risk of disturbing public order".

He responded to the call from EELV Île-de-France which invited the elected representatives available to go there with their scarves, as observers.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemns the elected officials who participated in these illegal demonstrations, at the National Assembly by making explicit reference to Jacques Boutault.

He explains his participation in this event in a press release reproduced on his blog.

He says he is the victim of insults and "political nonsense": "No one will silence and intimidate human rights defenders, supporters of dialogue between peoples".

While denouncing "the massacre of a population by the army of a State", he declares that he has "always mobilized to defend Jewish memory and the right for Israel to live in peace".

He supports Michèle Rivasi for the ecological presidential primary in 2016.

For the 2017 senatorial elections, he is No. 2 on the ecological list in Paris.