Michèle Rivasi (9 February 1953 – 29 November 2023) was a French politician who served as a

member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) from 2009 until her death in 2023, for

Europe Écologie–The Greens The Ecologists – Europe Ecology The Greens (), commonly known as The Ecologists (, LE) and formerly as Europe Ecology The Greens ( , EELV ) until 2023, is a centre-left to left-wing green political party in France. The party is a member of th ...

. She was previously a

member of the French National Assembly Deputies (, ), also known in English as members of Parliament (MPs), are the legislators who sit in the National Assembly (France), National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament. The 17th legislature of the French Fifth Republic, 17 ...

and before that, a teacher. An environmentalist active since the

Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only ...

in 1986, she was also a leader of

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of Environmental movement, environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its biod ...

in France.

Early life

Born on 9 February 1953, in

Montélimar Montélimar (; Vivaro-Alpine dialect, Vivaro-Alpine: ''Montelaimar'' ; ) is a town in the Drôme Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region in Southeastern France. It is the second-largest town in t ...

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.

, in southeastern France. She was an alumna of the '' École normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses'' and taught biology at

Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres The Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres (IUFM; ) was an institution in each French teaching Academy (one for each region) which specialised in the training of primary and secondary teachers. IUFM website, accessed 29 Sept. 2009 IUF ...

before entering politics.

Political career

Career in national politics

In 1986 Rivasi founded the Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity following the

. From

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

until

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

, 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 repr ...

, representing the Drôme's 1st constituency ( Valence).Michèle Rivasi

. In parliament, she served on the Defence Committee. She was classified as an independent

ecologist Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

close to the PS, but later joined

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

in France.

Member of the European Parliament, 2009–2023

In 2009,

The Greens The Greens or Greens may refer to: Current political parties *The Greens – The Green Alternative, Austria *Australian Greens, also known as ''The Greens'' * Greens of Andorra * The Greens (Benin) *The Greens (Bulgaria) * Greens of Bosnia and He ...

selected Rivasi to lead the

Europe Écologie Europe Ecology () 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. The coalition was launched on 20 October 2008 with the suppo ...

list in the South-East constituency ahead of the

2009 European elections 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Hindu–Arabic digit Circa 300 BC, as part of the Brahmi numerals, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bot ...

, in addition to which she was an assistant to the Mayor of Valence, and a member of the General Council of the Drôme. In parliament, Rivasi served on the

Committee on Industry, Research and Energy A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

(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). After 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 cou ...

, she served 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 Committees of the European Parliament, committee of the European Parliament. with 30 permanent members. It can be seen as the European Union's internal "political watchdog", seeking to identify undesi ...

.Michèle Rivasi

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

. 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/swine flu/influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, was the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918� ...

. In 2020, she also joined the Special Committee on Beating Cancer. From 2021 onwards, she was 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 ...

. 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 was also 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 ...

beginning in 2009. She was also a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals Ahead of the

2017 French presidential election Presidential elections were held in France on 23 April and 7 May 2017. Incumbent president François Hollande of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but declared on 1 December 2016 that he wo ...

, 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 environmental activist and politician who ran for President of France in 2022, placing sixth with 4.6% of the vote. A member of The Ecologists (LÉ), he was elected to represent Paris in the Senat ...

. 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 Party of England and Wales, Green politician, economist and activist. She served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England (European Parliament c ...

Tilly Metz Tilly Metz (born 26 May 1967) is a Luxembourgish politician of the Green Party ( déi Gréng). After teaching humanities and social sciences, she was appointed as deputy director of the Lycée Technique pour Professions Educatives et Sociales (L ...

, and Thomas Waitz) who were temporarily arrested after breaking into the

Kleine Brogel Air Base Kleine Brogel Air Base is a Belgian Air Component military airfield located east of Kleine-Brogel, in the municipality of Peer, Belgium. It is home to the Belgian 10th Tactical Wing, which operates F-16 Fighting Falcons. As part of nuclear shar ...

to protest against the presence of U.S.

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

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 described 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 Greens, 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. Rivasi was a strong supporter of

alternative medicine Alternative medicine refers to practices that aim to achieve the healing effects of conventional medicine, but that typically lack biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or supporting evidence of effectiveness. Such practices are ...

and

homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths or homeopathic physicians, believe that a substance that ...

. She opposed 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.

Death

Rivasi died from a heart attack in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

on 29 November 2023, at age 70, while on the way to the Parliament.

References

External links

Michèle Rivasi homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivasi, Michele 1953 births 2023 deaths People from Montélimar French people of Italian descent Socialist Party (France) politicians The Greens (France) politicians Europe Ecology – The Greens politicians Deputies of the 11th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic Members of Parliament for Drôme Europe Ecology – The Greens MEPs MEPs for South-East France 2009–2014 MEPs for South-East France 2014–2019 MEPs for France 2009–2014 MEPs for France 2014–2019 MEPs for France 2019–2024 21st-century women MEPs for France Women members of the National Assembly (France) 20th-century French women politicians 21st-century French women politicians People associated with Greenpeace French anti–nuclear power activists Anti-GMO activists French conspiracy theorists French anti-vaccination activists ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud-Lyon alumni