Nice Premium: Patrick Mottard, the PS members on your list have been excluded. What is your reaction to this?
Patrick Mottard: I feel it’s a tremendous waste. The thirty comrades excluded for being on the Nice Autrement list represent a total of 335 years of activism in the PS. There are the historical figures from 1971 and the Epinay Congress, members from the Mitterrand era in 1981, members from 2002 who stood against Le Pen’s presidential candidacy, and of course, members from the last presidential election. Among these, two 20-year-old students and a female activist who was with the SFIO before the current Socialist Party was formed (next to Jean Poperen) and whom we symbolically placed at the end of the list.
NP: How were the activists informed about this decision?
Patrick Mottard: By individual letter, sent two days after we publicly announced the Nice Autrement list, a polite and cold message starting with “Dear comrade” and ending with expressions of distinguished sentiments. Nobody was heard, no possibility of appeal is provided. While the decision is national, the request is local. It is based on article 11.19 of the PS statues, which allows for this exclusion following the request by one of the involved parties (in this case, the PS’s federal secretary of Alpes-Maritimes).
A small anecdote: two of the excluded were also summoned at the same time as members of the Federal Conflict Commission (the PS court) to preside during the proceedings against dissidents from La Trinité who are presenting a list against that supported by Patrick Allemand, led by a communist!
NP: You were initially excluded as well. Is this a logical continuation in PS’s reasoning?
Patrick Mottard: In fact, the Socialist Party did not exclude those among its leaders who took a stand against the PS during the referendum on the European Treaty; it did not react when ministers of the right-wing government, claiming to always hold their PS membership, did not flinch when various leaders published books about each other at the edge of libel. So, one gets the feeling that the logic is variable. I did not hear Patrick Allemand react harshly when Chantal Maimon, one of his close colleagues and head of the Socialist section of Mandelieu, decided to run in the municipal elections behind a dissident UMP candidate (and had, moreover, received a letter of support—sent perhaps a bit too hastily—from Ségolène Royal). But then, she was not in direct competition…
NP: Are you planning to take any action against this decision if, indeed, an appeal is possible?
Patrick Mottard: We politically do not accept this decision. Statutorily, we will explore possible appeals, but for now, we have better things to do.
NP: What does this change for the Nice Autrement campaign?
Patrick Mottard: Nothing. The socialists on the list remain socialists. United with women and men from diverse backgrounds, they continue to uphold their values and beliefs in this campaign. In fact, a large part of the activists from Nice Autrement hold a PS membership card.
NP: Lastly, do you continue to declare yourself as a socialist candidate for the upcoming municipal elections in Nice?
Patrick Mottard: More than ever, although for me, socialism has never equated with sectarianism.
