Marie Toussaint (born 27 May 1987 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 Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

) is a French

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

and politician who was elected as a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Early life and education

Born in

in 1987, Toussaint is the daughter of a sailor and a professor of economics in technical high school, both involved in the

International Movement ATD Fourth World The International Movement ATD Fourth World is a nonprofit organization which aims towards the eradication of chronic poverty through a human-rights based approach. It works in partnership with communities across the world to end the exclusion an ...

. She grew up in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

. After graduating, she joined

Sciences Po , motto_lang = fr , mottoeng = Roots of the Future , type = Public university, Public research university''Grande école'' , established = , founder = Émile Boutmy , a ...

through priority education agreements. She also holds a master's degree in international environmental law.

Political career

At the age of 18, Tousaint entered politics at

Europe Ecology – The Greens Europe Ecology – The Greens (french: Europe Écologie Les Verts , EELV ) is a centre-left to left-wing green political party in France. The party is a member of the European Green Party. The party was formed on 13 November 2010 from the merge ...

and became co-secretary of the Young Ecologists in 2011. At the same time, she volunteered for the

Yasuní-ITT Initiative The Yasuní-ITT Initiative was a project that attempted to keep over a billion barrels of oil in the ground under the Yasuni National Park, a biosphere reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The initiative was launched in 2007 by president Rafael Corr ...

, launched by

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

ian President

Rafael Correa Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado (; born 6 April 1963), known as Rafael Correa, is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The leader of the PAIS Alliance political movement from its foundation ...

for the preservation of

Yasuni National Park Yasuni can mean: * Yasuni National Park in Ecuador * The Yasuní-ITT Initiative, a proposal to refrain from exploiting oil reserves within the park * Lophostoma yasuni, a species of bat * Osteocephalus yasuni, a species of frog * Yasuni antwren, a ...

. In 2015, Toussaint founded Notre affaire à tous, an

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

defending a right to climate justice. Together with

Oxfam France Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. History Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...

, Greenpeace France and the Foundation for Nature and Man, their national

climate justice Climate justice is a concept that addresses the just division, fair sharing, and equitable distribution of the burdens of climate change and its mitigation and responsibilities to deal with climate change. "Justice", "fairness", and "equity" ar ...

campaign "Affaire du siècle" was launched on December 17, 2018 to sue the state for its inaction in the fight against

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. The associated petition became the most signed in France in less than a week, collecting 2 million signatories in a month.

Member of the European Parliament, 2019–present

During the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...

, Toussaint was in fourth place on the EELV's list of candidates. She has since been serving on the

Committee on Industry, Research and Energy The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) is a committee of the European Parliament. Its areas of responsibility relate to industry, especially technology-intensive manufacturing, information technology, and telecommunications. It also ...

. In addition to her committee assignments, Toussaint is part of the Parliament's delegations for relations with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and to the

Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) is a trans-national body of 150 Parliamentarians from Europe and Latin America. It was established in 2006 to bolster EU-Latin American relations. It was described by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, ...

(EuroLat). She is also a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Anti-Corruption, the European Parliament Intergroup on Anti-Racism and Diversity, the European Parliament Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, the European Parliament Intergroup on Fighting against Poverty, the

European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights The European Parliament Intergroup on LGBTI Rights is an intergroup Intergroups are formed of Members of the European Parliament from any political group and any committee, with a view to holding informal exchanges of views on particular subjects ...

, the European Parliament Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals and the Responsible Business Conduct Working Group.

Political positions

In May 2021, Toussaint joined a group of 39 mostly Green Party lawmakers from the European Parliament who in a letter urged the leaders of Germany, France and Italy not to support Arctic LNG 2, a $21 billion Russian Arctic liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, due to climate change concerns.Kate Abnett and Simon Jessop (19 May 2021)
EU lawmakers urge France, Germany, Italy to ditch Arctic LNG 2 support
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Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

''.

References

1987 births Living people MEPs for France 2019–2024 Europe Ecology – The Greens MEPs Europe Ecology – The Greens politicians 21st-century French women politicians Sciences Po alumni Politicians from Lille Politicians from Hauts-de-France {{France-MEP-stub