Michèle Rivasi (born 9 February 1953 in

Montélimar Montélimar (; Vivaro-Alpine: ''Montelaimar'' ; la, Acumum) is a town in the Drôme department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in north Provence, Southeastern France. It is the second-largest city in the department after Valence. In 2018 ...

Drôme Drôme (; Occitan: ''Droma''; Arpitan: ''Drôma'') is the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. Named after the river Drôme, it had a population of 516,762 as of 2019.

) is a French politician who has been serving 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 ...

(MEP) since 2009, for

Europe Écologie–The Greens Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

Education and early career

An alumna of the ''

École normale supérieure de lettres et sciences humaines The École normale supérieure lettres et sciences humaines (ENS LSH) was an elite French ''grande école'' specialising in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It was one of two '' Écoles normales supérieures'' (ENS) to be based in Lyon; ...

'' (Eng: Normal Superior school of Letters and Human Sciences), Rivasi worked as a biology teacher.

Political career

Career in national politics

In 1986 Rivasi founded the Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity following the Chernobyl disaster. From

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

until 2002, Rivasi was a member of 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 ...

, representing the Drôme's 1st constituency ( Valence). In parliament, she served on the Defence Committee. She was classified as an independent

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

close to the PS, but has since joined

. From September 2003 to November 2004, Rivasi was the director of Greenpeace in France.

Member of the European Parliament, 2009–present

In 2009,

The Greens The Greens or Greens may refer to: Current political parties *Australian Greens, also known as ''The Greens'' *Greens of Andorra * Greens of Bosnia and Herzegovina *Greens of Burkina * Greens (Greece) * Greens of Montenegro *Greens of Serbia *Gree ...

selected Rivasi to lead the

Europe Écologie Europe Ecology (french: Europe Écologie) was a green electoral coalition of political parties in France created for the 2009 European elections composed of The Greens and other ecologists and regionalists. For the European Parliament election i ...

list in the South-East constituency ahead of the 2009 European elections, in addition to which she is an assistant to the Mayor of Valence, and a member of the General Council of the Drôme. In parliament, Rivasi has served 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 ...

(2009-2014), the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (2014-2019) and the Special Committee on the European Union's authorisation procedure for pesticides (2018). Since the

2019 elections The following elections were scheduled to occur in 2019. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems has a calendar of upcoming elections around the world, and the National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections in coun ...

, she has been serving on the

Committee on Development The Committee on Development (Commission du développement, DEVE) is a committee of the European Parliament responsible for promoting, implementing and monitoring the development and cooperation policy of the European Union, notably talks with deve ...

and the

Committee on Budgetary Control The Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) is a committee of the European Parliament. with 30 permanent members. It can be seen as the European Union's internal "political watchdog", seeking to identify undesirable developments within EU institutio ...

. From 2010 until 2011, she notably served as the Parliament's

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

on measures to co-ordinate the European response to health crises such as the

2009 flu pandemic The 2009 swine flu pandemic, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, is the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918–1920 Span ...

. In 2020, she also joined the Special Committee on Beating Cancer. Since 2021, she has been part of the Parliament's delegation to the

Conference on the Future of Europe The Conference on the Future of Europe was a proposal of the European Commission and the European Parliament, announced at the end of 2019, with the aim of looking at the medium to long term future of the EU and what reforms should be made to i ...

. Following the

, Rivasi was part of a cross-party working group in charge of drafting the European Parliament's four-year work program on digitization. In addition to her committee assignments, Rivasi has also been part of the Parliament's delegation to the

ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly The ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly was created to bring together the elected representatives of the European Union (the Members of the European Parliament) and the elected representatives of the African, Caribbean and Pacific states ("ACP c ...

since 2009. She is also a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals Ahead of the

2017 French presidential election The 2017 French presidential election was held on 23 April and 7 May 2017. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a Two-round system, runoff was held between the top two candidates, Emmanuel Macron of La République En Marche!, En Ma ...

, Rivasi ran for her party's nomination for the presidency but eventually lost in the final round of the primaries against

Yannick Jadot Yannick Jadot (; born 27 July 1967) is a French environmentalist and politician who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since the 2009 European election, representing the West France constituency. Early career As an environ ...

. In February 2019, Rivasi was one of four Green MEPs (the others being

Molly Scott Cato Sarah Margaret "Molly" Scott Cato (born 21 May 1963) is a British Green politician, economist and activist. She served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 2014 to 2020. From 2012, until her election as an M ...

, Tilly Metz, and Thomas Waitz) who were temporarily arrested after breaking into the Kleine Brogel Air Base to protest against the presence of U.S.

B61 nuclear bomb The B61 nuclear bomb is the primary thermonuclear gravity bomb in the United States Enduring Stockpile following the end of the Cold War. It is a low to intermediate-yield strategic and tactical nuclear weapon featuring a two-stage radiation im ...

s on European soil; the protest followed the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty earlier that month.

Political positions

Rivasi describes herself as “vaccination skeptic”. She sparked controversy in July 2021 after comparing the extension of the health pass obligation announced by President Macron with apartheid and many left-wing officials, including from the Green, expressed their indignation and criticised her. On two occasions in 2021 she made a communication to the so-called ″conseil scientifique indépendant″ (Independent scientific council) of the highly controversial RéinfoCovid website that propagates COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. She is a strong supporter of alternative medicine and homeopathy. She opposes the planned Midi-Catalonia (Midcat) pipeline that would more than double the amount of gas that can be piped across the Pyrenees mountains that border Spain and France.Geert De Clercq (April 17, 2018)
Exclusive: Viability of French-Spain gas pipeline questioned - report
''

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 esta ...

''.

References

External links

Michèle Rivasi homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivasi, Michele 1953 births Living people People from Montélimar French people of Italian descent Politicians from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Europe Ecology – The Greens politicians Deputies of the 11th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Europe Ecology – The Greens MEPs MEPs for South-East France 2009–2014 MEPs for South-East France 2014–2019 MEPs for France 2019–2024 21st-century women MEPs for France People associated with Greenpeace French anti–nuclear power activists Anti-GMO activists 20th-century French women politicians Women members of the National Assembly (France) ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud-Lyon alumni French conspiracy theorists French anti-vaccination activists