The Municipal Council will deliberate, during today’s session, its opposition to the possibility of the State selling the majority share in the capital of the company Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur, the concessionaire of the airports of Nice, Cannes-Mandelieu, and Saint-Tropez. Additionally, it will be called upon to vote on organizing a public consultation for the City’s residents.
During the debate on this issue within the Metropolitan Council, where the same political actors are present, there was unanimous agreement regarding the so-called “privatization.”
The oppositions, however, have expressed against holding the consultation (in truth, in the absence of Madame Arnautu, the FN representative’s vote was not clearly expressed. Normally, they should be united today.
The deliberation to be voted on still calls for some curiosities.
If we all agree that Nice Airport is a strategic tool for tourism and the economic development of the territory, it remains to be understood how, by its “privatization,” it would cease to be so and why.
Wouldn’t it be better, instead of a somewhat dogmatic opposition in principle, to express legitimate concerns and see how things might proceed?
The quality of the investors, the strategic plan (as pointed out by the CCI president Bernard Keynhoff) does not matter before formulating a judgment and taking a stance?
Even more mysterious is the paragraph of the deliberation that calls attention to the “risk of takeover of the Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur by foreign capital.”
Are the international standards subscribed to by France within various organizations (WTO, European Union, OECD, EIB) regarding the principle of free movement of capital and the internationalization of the economy considered a “risk”? That would indeed be a world first!
Concerning the importance of the opinion of the voters of Nice, beyond the legitimacy of this consultation following the interpretation of the cited article of the Local Authorities Code (the City of Nice is competent in the matter – given that the shares to be sold are owned by the State – while it is not even a shareholder?), there remains a fundamental problem: Why the people of Nice and not other inhabitants of the territory (but how to define the exact perimeter?) when tourism and economic development, by definition, go well beyond the confines of the Nice territory?
Since a consultation is intended as an act of participatory democracy, why should a minority decide for the others?
Is the airport located in the Nice commune? False! The company also manages Cannes-Mandelieu and the Saint-Tropez airfield… Similarly, we do not elect the President of the Republic solely by Parisians because the Elysee is in Paris.
Let’s be serious…
