French Green MEP Michèle Rivasi dead at 70

Michèle Rivasi, a French MEP from the Greens–European Free Alliance group, died Wednesday at the age of 70, according to her office.

The EU lawmaker got her start in politics in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, when she founded an NGO that analyzed radioactivity in the environment after the nuclear disaster. She was elected to the French national assembly in 1997 as a socialist, and served as a member until 2002.

In 2009 she ran and won a seat in the European Parliament as a Green, and then was twice reelected, in 2014 and 2019.

Rivasi was a well-known political figure in France, and was a visible campaigner across a number of issues, including the use of pesticides, pharmaceutical company practices and nuclear energy.

She's also been at the center of controversy, most recently for her skepticism toward what she saw as over-extensive vaccination. She was also critical of French President Emmanuel Macron's vaccine mandate.

Rivasi was known as a pugnacious fighter for transparency. She was one of the MEPs, for example, who fought to have the Commission's vaccine procurement contracts shared with the wider public.