“The Region is back.” And it shifts “from a culture of spending to one of investment,” stated the President of the Region, Christian Estrosi, during the public session for the 2016 budget vote. “He is the problem…” think the young leaders of this left-wing movement acting as stand-ins for an absent socialist party.
Who can be surprised to see in President Estrosi’s first regional budget yet another deceptive gesture?
The list is long, in this 2016 regional budget, of retreating from the electoral campaign bravado: the harsh reality is one of a decrease in most budget items, particularly those that relate to the core competencies of the Region and are crucial for development and employment: the economy, professional training, and transport.
Promises only bind those who believe in them: for our part, we have never seen Christian Estrosi as a resistant, nor even as a political figure capable of keeping his promises, not even between the two rounds of the regional election…
Reduction in budgets related to the main competencies of the region, disguising existing measures as false innovations, partisan reflexes to protect favored commune leaders who refuse social housing, neglect of the most vulnerable territories, particularly mountain areas: these are caricature choices of a regional right that has not sought long to camouflage itself in the garb of social Gaullism and that abandons the inhabitants of the region and their most concrete concerns.
Furthermore, have you heard Mr. Estrosi consult the progressive camp whose withdrawal facilitated his election for these budgetary choices? The regional conference, which he has so fervently waved the flag for, will only meet a posteriori, at the discretion of a President who, specifically, does not seem to want it to be very useful…
Such cynicism, both in the abandonment of programmatic commitments and in the trampling of beautiful, unifying words that expire as soon as the day after the election, continues to damage political discourse amongst our fellow citizens.
In Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur, Debout la Gauche and its network of reflection and action groups will continue working to build a real alternative with all citizens who hope for something better for their Region than a harmful tête-à-tête between a far-right that remains subject to its same demons and a vengeful and powerless right.
Cécile Muschotti, Christophe Pierrel, Ladislas Polski (Debout la Gauche)
