After over 30 years in the National Assembly, the former centrist MP from the department was not re-elected by the voters of the 3rd constituency. However, he has not lost his traditional eloquence and has turned to his local mandates: Deputy Mayor of Nice with important delegations (tourism, international relations, local events) and metropolitan councilor.
“Things did not go as planned,” he said while greeting the many elected officials and supporters who responded to his invitation for the 2018 New Year’s wishes. “We expected a double victory in the presidential and legislative elections, but we faced a double failure and an upheaval in political life: we have a president we did not expect, and the parties have broken apart.”
The diagnosis is simple: voters no longer want parties, at least in their old form. There is a gap between the functioning of politics and the expectations of citizens who want those in power to solve their problems and find solutions, and they can no longer stand ideological stances that mask power plays.
This misalignment has given rise to a new demand, which we should call the policy of subsidiarity: overturning the pyramid, giving responsibility to those best placed to solve the problem at hand.
Rudy Salles and the centrists (henceforth, it’s every man for himself, with the Radicals in the Valois faction in the process of merging with their left-wing counterparts; the centrists—now the new denomination of the Nouveau Centre—and the UDI reduced to a minimal portion), at least those beholden to him, have chosen to remain faithful, as always, to the political line of Christian Estrosi, and have joined the gathering of the “audacious,” who want to impose, first through the strength of proposals and then through action, a break with the “political politicking” that seems old regime compared to the modernity expressed by the new President of the Republic.
In any case, from a personal perspective, the succession is ready: Jennifer Salles-Barbosa is a regional councilor and presides over the tourism commission. The path is set.
