Saturday, February 11, from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at CLAJ Cimiez, 26 avenue Scudéri in Nice. How can a conference, be it partisan, trigger such controversy? We publish the attack and the counterattack between the mayor of Nice and his communist left-wing opponents. And then we wonder why citizens distance themselves from politics…
Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, President of Nice Côte d’Azur, disapproves of this initiative:
“I was astonished to learn that an association in Nice has granted the League of Human Rights of Toulon and Nice a room for organizing a conference on February 10 and 11, on the theme of the ‘fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Algerian War’.
I want to say that I fully share the legitimate emotion of the repatriated people of Nice and members of associations of French repatriates. I have also immediately communicated by mail to the League of Human Rights my total disapproval of this initiative, which in no way falls within the framework or spirit of the Commemoration of the Cinquantenaire in Nice.
Indeed, I wanted this year of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Repatriation from Algeria in Nice to be dedicated to our repatriated compatriots of all faiths. The program set up by the City of Nice was developed jointly and then validated by the associations of repatriates and Harkis and placed under the High Patronage of the Presidency of the Republic.
Thus, I ask the League of Human Rights of Nice and Toulon to ensure they show respect to the repatriated and Harkis, and to defer, in a spirit of wisdom and appeasement, the holding of this conference, to which I nevertheless cannot legally object.”
Could Christian Estrosi be the last “protector” of the OAS??
In April 2011, Christian Estrosi allowed OAS nostalgics to lay a wreath in memory of the coupist generals. (1)
In October 2011, the same Christian Estrosi questioned the Algerian consul in Nice to express his astonishment at the organization of a conference on the events of October 17, 1961, “which a number of his constituents consider a provocation, likely to generate tensions.”
On February 9, 2012, Christian Estrosi does it again. The LDH organizes a conference in Nice in the context of the 50th anniversary of the End of the Algerian War on the theme “Why such a tragic end to the war?”
The mayor of Nice expresses his “total disapproval of this initiative, which in no way falls within the framework or spirit of the Commemoration of the Cinquantenaire in Nice,” and he “asks the LDH to ensure they show respect to the repatriated and Harkis, and to defer, in a spirit of wisdom and appeasement, the holding of this conference, which he regrets he cannot legally oppose.”
But what motivates the mayor of Nice to impose his “conception” of the fiftieth anniversary?
Respect for the repatriated and the Harkis? Pretext!
This year of the 50th anniversary of the Algerian War is also an election year, and the mayor of Nice is hunting for votes from nostalgics of French Algeria and the OAS, who have long shown a preference for the FN.
In trouble, like his mentor N. Sarkozy, rejected by the French people, C. Estrosi uses the same recipes as a Guéant to try to please a far-right electorate.
Pitiful attitude of a former minister of the Republic, deputy mayor of the fifth largest city in France, president of the Euromed city network, who claims to impose on historians what they should think and say!
This right-wing party loses a little more each day the sense of the Republic’s values.
For my part, I invite those for whom the Republic, its values, and human rights still mean something to participate in this conference.
Robert Injey, PCF Municipal Counselor of Nice
(1) The concerned monument, located in the Alsace Lorraine garden, bears an inscription in memory of Roger Degueldre, responsible for the Delta commandos of the OAS, who assassinated six directors of social centers in El Biar on March 15, 1962. Degueldre was sentenced to death and executed the same year.
