On the occasion of Hervé Morin’s visit to Nice for the Marianne Assembly, where he is one of the speakers, Rudy Salles, Member of Parliament for the Alpes-Maritimes and Departmental President of the UDI, took the opportunity to organize a meeting-debate with the former Minister of Defense. The agenda included an assessment and the prospects of the recently formed political party.
For the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), the priority is construction. The brand-new center-right party, founded in September 2012 by Jean Louis Borloo, still needs to establish itself on the French political scene. However, according to Hervé Morin, the centrists are off to a good start and “the mechanism is being put in place at the national level.”
Furthermore, for the National Deputy of the Party, “the Center-right has often been right before everyone else, but we refuse to acknowledge it.” Here, he alludes to the famous golden rule on debt ardently defended by centrists and rejected by socialists.
For Mr. Morin, the UDI needed to exist, “it was a compelling obligation to create this party. The centrists have lost many elections in recent years, we were no longer visible on the political stage.” Rudy Salles confirms this and adds, “Only Borloo could build the UDI” thanks to his strong capacity to unite.
The UDI’s primary goal is the upcoming European and regional elections, especially the European ones, as this is a point where the party stands out from others. “The European consciousness is increasingly being lost,” exclaims Hervé Morin.
The party already has about ten cities where it aims to establish itself, among them Caen, Rouen, Toulouse, Angoulême, and Lille. “I have traveled a lot across France lately,” explains Hervé Morin, “there is a real local movement forming, people are coming back!” In the PACA region, the challenge is tough given the strong presence of the UMP. “We are analyzing each of the 163 municipalities one by one to develop a better strategy,” declares Rudy Salles.
On a national level, the UDI is clearly in favor of a decentralized society, believing that the pyramidal State is definitely outdated.
To illustrate this point, an example instinctively comes to Hervé Morin’s mind, “Look at the reform in education, it’s ridiculous! How will adding 30 minutes of lessons lighten the students’ load?”
For him, this measure is inappropriate because the negotiation was exclusively held in the capital without adequately considering the rest of the country. A still overly centralized scheme.
A mistake that the UDI intends not to make. They aim to find a balance between unity and maintaining the uniqueness of each territory. A project that is just beginning.
