Remi Poppe
Remi Jean Louis Poppe is a former Dutch politician and environmental activist. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2002 and again from 2006 to 2010 on behalf of the Socialist Party.
Education and environmental activism
Poppe only completed primary school. He was a gardener, sailor on coastal shipping, dock worker, factory worker and painter. In the late 1960s he was active as an environmental activist in the Rotterdam area.Around 1967 he was part of an action committee called Stront aan de knikker and in 1969 he was one of the founders of the which fought against environmental pollution in the Rijnmond area. The organization soon became known when it successfully opposed the arrival of a Hoogovens steel mill on the Maasvlakte. What was special about the CAR was that it reached out to the workers in the polluting factories and succeeded quite well, arguing that an unhealthy working and living environment was also detrimental to the workers.
Political activism
At a party conference in October 1972, at which the Communist Party of [the Netherlands (Marxist-Leninist)], founded in 1971, changed its name to the Socialist Party, Poppe, known and popular in radical left circles, was presented as a new member of the party and was directly elected to the party board. He fulfilled a prominent role in the Milieu Aktiecentrum Nederland, a collaboration between the CAR and the ', which was founded in January 1973 and, like the BHW, a front organization of the SP. The MAN exposed environmental scandals near Billiton in Arnhem, near Diosynth in Oss, near in Tiel, and at the waste management company Exploitatie Maatschappij Krimpen in Krimpen aan den IJssel. On behalf of the SP, Poppe was the lead candidate in the municipal elections in his hometown of Vlaardingen in 1974 and also in the 1977 Dutch general election, both without winning any seats. In 1978, the SP obtained one seat in Vlaardingen on a joint ticket with the Pacifist Socialist Party, which Poppe was allowed to occupy from 1980. Until 1994 he was a councilor and faction leader on behalf of his party on the municipal council of Vlaardingen. In 1994 the SP became the largest party in Vlaardingen with Poppe as the lead candidate, winning 19 percent of the vote and seven seats.In 1989 Poppe was the lead candidate of his party in the European parliamentary elections, but again without success. In the same year he started the MilieuAlarmTeam within the party, which in its early years mainly focused on the in Goor, where several employees died of cancer due to exposure to asbestos fibers. Poppe, now a self-proclaimed 'environmental detective', also uncovered illegal waste dumping from the processing company Zegwaard by following the company's trucks after he received a tip from an employee. In 1992 he was one of the initiators to plant 17,000 trees in polder near Vlaardingen, in order to prevent the construction of a landfill. The illegal planting created the ' nature reserve.