Christian Estrosi put on quite a show for his first public session as President of the Regional Council, juggling words and trying to confuse those who were waiting to challenge him: “It’s hard to understand where I stand. In fact, I am a free man,” he said as he zigzagged between concepts: “passionate about industry, workers, technicians, the smell of workshops. It is for them that I have the utmost respect, even though I also have some for entrepreneurs who think of the general interest, not those who play on the stock exchange.”
During this plenary Assembly, the regional representatives approved the creation of an ethics commission to be chaired by Catherine HUSSON-TROCHAIN, Honorary First President of the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence.
Christian Estrosi also intended to win over the 6,000 civil servants who were skeptical after 18 years of socialist management and a few months of uncertainty: there will be no “witch hunt,” he proclaimed solemnly.
The new regional president is a man with the ambition to move quickly: beyond his constant slogan “promise made, promise kept,” he knows that he must strike hard and fast to give momentum to the sleepy economy of PACA.
The battle for employment will be played out through economic development that involves innovation and internationalization.
From this perspective, Christian Estrosi has well understood that the attractiveness of territories is the winning card for successful regions. With a parochial economy, we go nowhere!
The first step is the SRDEII (Regional Scheme for Economic Development, Innovation, and Internationalization) which must define the orientations for the regional economy and organize the complementarity of actions carried out by the Region and other communities in economic matters.
Next, “Within a hundred days, we will launch the investment fund for businesses (Fier), as well as twelve operations of regional interest.”
The message is clear: the Region must shift gears.
Meeting on January 29 for a debate on budget orientations that will allow for a better understanding of the new majority’s roadmap.
As for the opposition, it has not made much of a stir: Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the president of the FN group, would like to create a commission to evaluate regional policies chaired by one of her own.
Photo credit: Christian Estrosi (Facebook)
