Marielle de Sarnez, the fighter of Europe, is no longer
(B2) The current president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly (France), and former MEP from 1999 to 2017, Marielle de Sarnez, died this Wednesday (13.01) in Paris at the Pitie-Salpétrière hospital .
She was also a short time Minister of European Affairs (under Emmanuel Macron from May to June 2017). But De Sarnez was also (and above all) the soul of the centrist party (MODEM) of which she was the first vice-president.
A supporter of European defense
B2 loses her godmother a bit. The one that pushed us to go further, to deepen, to be on the front line of European defense while remaining critical when necessary. A warm being but who also had a shrewd intelligence, far from the hexagonal tempting arrogance, and a vision of the future. Marielle thought that European defense was not just a fantasy, a hobby, but a real project, a necessity destined to impose itself, even if the emergence was slow and knew detours and vicissitudes. . Among French MEPs, few were interested in this subject. We counted them on the fingers of one hand... And again.
An enthusiastic European spirit
Marielle was also the very embodiment of the enthusiastic but also practical European spirit. To be convinced, she was not realistic about the weaknesses of the system. His simplicity, his knowledge of the files, his sense of curiosity were a delight. Everyone who knew her in the European Parliament or the National Assembly remembers her. Even if behind this smile, there was a woman with an iron temperament, who did not allow herself to be counted on the political level and could impose herself and impose on a few who were sent back to the locker room without hesitation.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
