For his media return, the rebellious MP Adrien Quatennens makes his mea culpa after his conviction for domestic violence recognizing his “errors” and ensuring that he has “improved”.
A mea culpa for his media return. More than a year after his conviction for domestic violence against his ex-wife, with whom he was divorcing at the time, and his return to the National Assembly, Adrien Quatennens declared “regret” for having “raised his hand” against his former wife. “This gesture must not be minimized or trivialized” repeated the deputy from the North on the set of France 2, this Wednesday, February 7, after a long absence in the media.
Rehabilitated by his group La France insoumise which he joined on the benches of the Assembly on April 11, 2023, after having served for four months as a non-registered elected official, Adrien Quatennens has yet to show his credentials publicly. These latest comments in the media, at the end of 2023, after the revelations about the slap he had given his wife a few years earlier had not been well received. The man had denounced a “media lynching” in the Voix du Nord and had tried to contextualize his act, evoking on BFMTV a relationship that was “not violent” but “difficult for about two years” as well as a “serious argument with reciprocal threats “. A year later, the MP assures us that “a slap is not acceptable and that no context justifies it”.
Adrien Quatennens admitted to having two regrets after this affair, but not so much on the consequences it had on his political career. “What I regret is having one day raised my hand. What I also regret is having misunderstood that certain words in my defense were poorly chosen, today I would not say them again” , indicated the elected official. As for his four-month suspended prison sentence, he does not comment on it, simply recalling that he “did not contest it”. Once the sentence has been served, he now believes he can move forward, even advance the debate on the subject of domestic violence.
“We can make mistakes, regret them […] and improve. There is a path that I followed and I hope that it can be followed by all those concerned”, insisted Adrien Quatennens in reference to the intra-family violence awareness course that he followed. La France insoumise had conditioned the return of the deputy to its ranks on the follow-up of this course which “helped a lot” the man by his own admission. “I learned, I worked, I understood” assured the person close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, explaining that he even “understood what feminists say when they say that in violence there is a form of continuum, something progressive. And the rebel adds in a more political tone this time that “if we want to eradicate this violence, then we must eradicate certain mechanisms which are internalized, in particular sexist mechanisms”. A task he intends to tackle in the Assembly? Time will tell.
