At a time when others would fade into the background and relinquish their membership after a resounding defeat in the European elections, he stands tall and seeks to speak. A matter of courage…or ambition. Vice-President of the High Court of Nice and candidate on the South-East list of the MoDem, Christophe Tukov, whom Nice-Premium had interviewed during the campaign, intends to learn all the lessons from the failure. Foremost among these, from his president: “The strength of the MoDem,” Christophe Tukov declares, “is François Bayrou…even if he must learn to better control the reactive aspect of his temperament.” Then, of a program: “Full of ideas about everything, but lacking a catchy slogan, no coherence,” he explains before adding: “when I defended it during the campaign, I felt like I was spinning my wheels.” “It just didn’t resonate, including on ecology where we nonetheless had nothing to envy from other lists.” An issue also was the communication strategy surrounding the release of “Abuse of Power,” a “book that was in no way a European program.” Which, according to him, “should have led us to move on quickly.”
Furthermore, the European failure of the MoDem reveals, according to Christophe Tukov, a “structural problem of the party.” And he criticizes on a local level: “pamphlets announced, never arrived, or posters delivered in large quantity without any directives.” Centralization is additionally criticized: “when we needed a pot of glue, we had to submit a request in three copies to the national level!”
Going forward, according to him, necessarily involves alliances: “we cannot avoid reflecting on a major coordination between MoDem, PS, Greens.” In this respect, Christophe Tukov is pleased about the holding of a national council, “salutary because everyone spoke to each other.” But creating thematic commissions and establishing a decentralized operation “came too late to benefit the party at the regional elections of 2010.”
So, let’s move on to 2012! Whether it reflects the MoDem’s ambivalence towards power, yet our speaker seems torn between his ambitions and his desire to maintain a form of political purity. If he readily admits his “national ambition” – he would “not refuse the post of Minister of Justice if one day Bayrou as president offered it to him” –, he simultaneously defends himself from “becoming a professional politician.” Especially if “professional politician is reduced to electoral tactics and bargaining for positions,” he specifies in a phrase of which he is aware of the “naivety.” From this first experience, he nevertheless acknowledges having learned “the ability to adapt his speech to his audience”: a cautious step towards professionalism?
“From the center, the MoDem must become central again” he concludes as if coining a slogan. In the meantime, one must recover because the “wounds are deep, the activists are disoriented, and conflicts are numerous within local bodies.” “Recover,” a sine qua non for the continuation of the MoDem. With an unknown: “Will François Bayrou manage to mobilize again?” A question posed by the magistrate, to which he provides no answer.
