Sian d’Aqui: What actions do you plan to take in favor of the return of the Court of Appeal?
Patrick Allemand: I will fight for the Court of Appeal with all the necessary determination, but the recent reform of the judicial map by Madame DATI may have definitively killed this case, which is a blatant injustice for Nice.
To be completely objective, the only time we could have succeeded was when Madame GUIGOU, then Minister of Justice, came to inaugurate the rehabilitation of the Nice High Court. She had promised at the time the possibility of decentralizing some chambers. The right found this progress too timid! We see what they have done with it.
Sian d’Aqui: What facility will be installed at the location of the current South Station?
Patrick Allemand: Presumably a multi-activity structure. I keep the idea of an underground parking lot, as well as a gymnasium and meeting rooms. I will add a multipurpose auditorium with 700 seats (for music and theatre), a 200-seat room more focused on reading, Sophie DUEZ talks about a multi-activity space dedicated to body and words. Finally, there will be a decentralized town hall with a municipal police station open 24/7.
Sian d’Aqui: What is your position on the future stadium and what is the envisioned timeline for its completion?
Patrick Allemand: I am talking about a new stadium with a capacity of 26,000 seats, rebuilt in-situ at Ray. I am committed to Ray because it is the history of football in Nice and the soul of the club. Talking about a large 40,000-person stadium in the west by 2016 makes no sense. It’s pure demagogy.
My goal would be to deliver this stadium by 2011 with construction starting in 2009.
Sian d’Aqui: Don’t you find it legitimate for Nice to become the regional capital in a new redistricting?
Patrick Allemand: We must be realistic, the time is more for merging rather than splitting the current regions. And our region is well balanced with two poles, somewhat like Lyon and Grenoble in Rhône-Alpes. Rather than dragging a claim doomed to failure, Nice would do better to pay attention to what is moving, to the Euro-Region for example, which is chaired for six months by Michel VAUZELLE. This Euro-Region has a real legal status; it includes Rhône-Alpes, PACA, Aosta Valley, Piedmont, and Liguria. And in this context, Nice has a unique geostrategic position. Nobody talks about it!
Sian d’Aqui: What actions are you planning to promote the learning of the Niçoise language in schools, colleges, high schools, and universities?
Patrick Allemand: Our project is mainly focused on elementary schools, which are under the municipality’s jurisdiction. There will be awareness of the Niçoise language in all primary schools in the city with an agreement with the national education system, handled by the municipality, and the opening of the first Calendreta in 2009, followed by others if needs arise.
Sian d’Aqui: Do you intend to continue and/or improve the celebration of traditional Niçoise festivals?
Patrick Allemand: Yes. We recognize Jacques PEYRAT for having had the merit to bring them up to date but by giving the celebration of these festivals a dimension other than religious. Everything will be done to involve the population, associate it, more secular, more popular. It’s a different vision of partying that will also be an element of our city’s attractiveness. The Mais, for example, will be held again in all the neighborhoods.
Sian d’Aqui: What future for the carnival?
Patrick Allemand: To make the Carnival a global event again and not make it a regional festival as UMP predicts, relying on Niçoise culture and the population, the city will initiate an awareness campaign among the population.
Launch an operation: a carnival in every district and make the corso of the Nice Carnival the convergence point for all creations and animations in the city by relying on schools through a partnership with the National Education so that in the first school quarter, the subjects awakening to the arts have the carnival theme as educational support.
Sian d’Aqui: Do you think the venues for expressing Niçoise culture are sufficient or satisfactory?
Patrick Allemand: They are non-existent. Even the folk groups have to make do with prefab facilities. The municipality will facilitate access of Niçois artists to municipal galleries to exhibit. More generally, it will encourage and enhance Niçoise creation, including through public procurement but also by facilitated access to cultural structures funded by the town hall (in particular TNN).
Sian d’Aqui: What means do you plan to implement to promote and spread Niçoise culture?
Patrick Allemand: Include in the specifications of Nice TV, bilingual programs and the creation of programs in Niçois. Support policy for the education of books, CDs, in Niçois.
The creation of two major events:
– Biennial of contemporary art, open to young Niçois creators.
– Festival of Latino-Occitan music.
Sian d’Aqui: Can we envisage in the charters related to urban planning a section related to the Niçoise identity?
Patrick Allemand: Yes. Several provisions are planned and aim to create a “Local Interest Heritage” label. This specifically targets, outside security perimeters, neighborhoods of Old Nice and the Port of Nice, to protect Niçois houses from demolition-reconstruction operations, to preserve our way of life by protecting boules courts, and to preserve our plant heritage, especially olive trees and citrus fruits.
Sian d’Aqui: What are your proposals to promote and enhance Niçoise identity?
Patrick Allemand: Encouragement for public radios with regional decouplings to broadcast Niçoise songs and to inform about Niçoise cultural events.
Enhancement in the network of municipal libraries of historical literature and Niçois authors.
School awareness of Niçoise cuisine by periodically organizing Niçoise meals in schools.
Creation of an informational module in primary schools on local culture and history.
All these are promises, but the song “changer d’air,” our campaign song written by Louis Pastorelli and Sophie Duez, illustrates the sense of what we want to do.
