The Left Front representatives Robert Injey, Emmanuelle Gaziello, Jacques Victor, and Marie Christine Vergiat visited the Maison des Associations to present their “combative” wishes for the year 2013.
“With the eleven months ahead of us, we can still wish each other a Happy New Year at the end of January.” It was with this note of humor that Jacques Victor, General Councillor, opened the Left Front’s New Year’s ceremony.
There were about fifty people, activists, neighborhood citizens, or association presidents, gathered in the Laure Ecard room of the brand-new Maison des Associations on Boulevard St Roch.
Without delay, Jacques Victor announced: A good year, yes, but it is also wishes of resistance, struggle, and mobilization that will be made tonight. For him, “The much-awaited change must be built.”
Emmanuelle Gazielo, Municipal Councillor, was the first to speak. She focused on the fight against the pervasive austerity in Nice and many current issues (like the destruction of Square Colonel Jean-Pierre on Rue Trachel). She is confident the Left Front is ready to rise to the challenge of leading the city in order to offer an alternative policy to the citizens. The year 2013, for her, will focus on construction, citizen consultation, and a campaign for “the right of the people of Nice to live, not just survive!”
Ms. Gaziello highlighted five points on which she intends to double her efforts: “We must give meaning to indebtedness, public health, housing, sustainable development, and culture.”
Then it was Marie Christine Vergiat’s turn to speak. For the Member of the European Parliament, an alternative policy must be proposed at the European level. She advocates for a better distribution of wealth to address the increasingly growing social inequalities. “The year 2013 must be a year of citizen mobilization.”
Robert Injey, Municipal Councillor, was the last to speak. For him, the message is clear, the situation must change, “the fear of unemployment and insecurity must disappear.” He laments a Socialist Party “obsessed with the 2014 municipal elections” and that “nothing has changed in Nice.”
The councillor announced that over the next three months, 100 public initiatives would be proposed by the Left Front to “see what is possible to do, identify expectations, and build responses.”
For the Left Front, 2013 will be a year of change and mobilization. The ceremony concluded with a friendly gathering to more joyously, albeit belatedly, celebrate the new year.
