Adrien Quatennens (; born 23 May 1990) is a French politician who has represented
Nord's 1st constituency in the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
since 2017. From June 2019 until September 2022, he was also the party coordinator of
La France Insoumise
La France Insoumise (FI or LFI; ; "France Unbowed") is a left-wing populist political party in France, launched in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, then a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and former co-president of the Left Party (PG). It aims ...
(LFI). Quatennens was first elected to the National Assembly in the
2017 legislative election before he was reelected in
2022
File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...
.
Early life and education
Adrien Quatennens was born on 23 May 1990 in
Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...
,
Nord. His father is an executive of
Électricité de France (EDF), France's public electric utility company, and his mother is a salesperson in an eyeglasses store.
Quatennens became involved in politics at the age of 16, participating in the
2006 youth protests in France against the
First Employment Contract
The ''contrat première embauche'' (CPE; en, first employment contract) was a new form of employment contract pushed in spring 2006 in France by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. This employment contract, available solely to employees unde ...
. He is also a member of organizations supporting homeless people as well as
ATTAC
The Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l'Action Citoyenne (''Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen's Action'', ATTAC) is an activist organisation originally created to promote the e ...
, a group advocating the taxation of
foreign exchange transactions.
In 2008, Quatennens received a bachelor's degree in economic and social affairs from the Catholic school La Croix Blanche in
Bondues, which he had also attended for secondary school.
He then began studying economics at the
University of Lille
The University of Lille (french: Université de Lille, abbreviated as ULille, UDL or univ-lille) is a French public research university based in Lille, Hauts-de-France. It has its origins in the University of Douai (1559), and resulted from the ...
, but dropped out in his second year and entered the workforce.
It was as an apprentice for EDF that Quatennens obtained a
Brevet de technicien supérieur The Brevet de technicien supérieur (BTS) senior technologist’s certificate is a national diploma of higher education in France, established in 1959.
The technician certificate is usually earned in two years, after graduating with a Bac (baccala ...
(BTS) in business management, after which he began to work as a consultant for businesses and professionals in the energy sector. His last job before being elected to the National Assembly was the position of clientele consultant to EDF in Lille.
Political career
Left Party
Adrien Quatennens became a follower of
Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2008, joining him in the
Left Party (PG) in 2013 and becoming a member of its national council two years later.
During the
2012 French presidential election
Presidential elections were held in France on 22 April 2012 (or 21 April in some overseas departments and territories), with a second round run-off held on 6 May (or 5 May for those same territories) to elect the President of France (who is al ...
, Quatennens campaigned for Mélenchon's unsuccessful presidential bid and did so again under the banner of
La France Insoumise
La France Insoumise (FI or LFI; ; "France Unbowed") is a left-wing populist political party in France, launched in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, then a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and former co-president of the Left Party (PG). It aims ...
(LFI) in
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...
. He also served alongside
Ugo Bernalicis as PG secretary in Nord, being based in Lille.
In the
2014 French municipal elections
The French municipal elections of 2014 were held on 23 March of that year with a second round of voting, where necessary, on 30 March to elect the municipal councils of France's communes. The first task of each newly constituted municipal council i ...
, Quatennens ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the municipal council of Lille as a part of Hugo Vandamme's PG electoral list.
La France Insoumise and National Assembly
Quatennens was nominated by LFI in
Nord's 1st constituency during the
2017 French legislative election
Legislative elections in France were held on 11 and 18 June 2017 (with different dates for voters overseas) to elect the 577 members of the 15th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic. They followed the two-round presidential election won b ...
s, winning 19.38% of the vote in the first round against 32.61% for Christophe Itier of
La République En Marche
Renaissance (RE), previously known as La République En Marche ! (frequently abbreviated LREM, LaREM or REM; translated as "The Republic on the Move" or "Republic Forward"), or sometimes called simply En Marche ! () as its original name, is a ...
(LREM). The ''insoumis'' was then elected to the National Assembly in the second round with 50.11% of the vote, or a margin of 50 votes.
As a deputy, Quatennens sits on the
Social Affairs Committee. His committee work has included a review of the 2017 labour law reform bill, against which he introduced a motion for preliminary rejection.
Quatennens' early days in the National Assembly attracted much media attention,
especially after he gave a speech lasting half an hour on 10 July 2017. He also advocated for an LFI bill to recognize mental health issues linked to
occupational burnout
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s ...
as
occupational disease
An occupational disease is any chronic ailment that occurs as a result of work or occupational activity. It is an aspect of occupational safety and health. An occupational disease is typically identified when it is shown that it is more prevale ...
s.
Quatennens is considered a rising figure in LFI, being named party coordinator by the LFI representative assembly to replace
Manuel Bompard
Manuel Bompard (; born 30 March 1986) is a French politician who has been a member of the National Assembly since 2022.
Early life and education
Manuel Bompard was born on March 30, 1986 in Firminy, and grew up in the Drôme. His father is a co ...
on 22 July 2019.
Quatennens was chosen by his party to lead its campaign against the
Philippe government's pension reform bill. He denounced the proposal as an "inequitable" project due to differences in life expectancy between social classes as well as its ultimate goal of effectively raising the retirement age.
Quatennens was one of the French political figures targeted by
Pegasus spyware under the orders of the government of
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
, leading him to file a legal complaint in court.
The
2022 presidential election saw Mélenchon come in first place in Quatennens' constituency, winning 41.8% of the vote in the first round. Quatennens successfully ran for re-election in the subsequent
2022 French legislative election
Legislative elections in France were held on 12 and 19 June 2022 to elect the 577 members of the 16th National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic. The elections took place following the 2022 French presidential election, which was held in A ...
s under the LFI banner. He was one of 15 National Assembly candidates nationwide to win with over 50% of the vote in the first round, recording one of the best electoral results in his party. On 18 September 2022, Quatennens stepped down from his duties as coordinator of La France Insoumise, following a domestic violence controversy with his wife, Céline Quatennens.
Personal life
Adrien Quatannens is a fan of
rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
and has admired
Johnny Hallyday
Jean-Philippe Léo Smet (; 15 June 1943 – 5 December 2017), better known by his stage name Johnny Hallyday, was a French rock and roll and pop singer and actor, credited for having brought rock and roll to France.
During a career spanning 57 ...
since he was a child. In his teenage years, Quatannens also became a fan of
Nirvana
( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
,
Noir Désir
Noir Désir (, "Black Desire") was a French rock band from Bordeaux. They were active during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, and have had two albums certified double platinum in France and three certified gold. They have been an influence on n ...
,
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
—of whom he wrote a biography at the age of 12—and
Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine, whose concerts he has attended many times.
Quatanenns also plays the drums for the Insousols, a band consisting of members of La France Insoumise.
In 2022 Quatannens admitted to slapping his wife and subsequently resigned as Coordinator of the Left-Green alliance.
Works
* Preface to ''Battre la campagne: journal d'une insoumise'' by Céleste van Isterdael, Éditions Borrego, 2018
* ''Génération Mélenchon,'' Seuil, 2021
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quatennens, Adrien
1990 births
Living people
Politicians from Lille
Politicians from Hauts-de-France
Deputies of the 15th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
La France Insoumise politicians
French people of Belgian descent
Members of Parliament for Nord