He will be the newcomer at the next municipal council of Nice as a newly elected member. However, for Gaël Nofri, this will not be unfamiliar territory, having already spent many moments in this chamber during the Peyrat era and in a main city hall he knows well.
Nice-Premium: Your arrival at the municipal council will be the novelty of the Nice political season. How come you decided to cross the Rubicon?
Gaël Nofri : I’m going to disappoint you. I didn’t have a red folder called “Rubicon” in my drawers. Quite the contrary, I had embraced the idea of remaining a collaborator of the group of elected officials and being useful where my place was. It so happened that an elected member – Jean-Luc Passeron – at one point, felt that given the circumstances and the evolution of events, my presence on the Council could bring something to the democratic debate and freely chose to resign. When he informed me of his decision, I was on vacation with my family in Corsica: I had not only organized nothing but also not anticipated it. Entering such a context is not easy, and I perceive the demands inevitably attached to the trust that has been placed in me.
N-P: Your presence will heighten the potentially conflictual nature between your list and that of the FN. Marie-Christine Arnautu explicitly accused you of being the cause of this rupture. How do you envision the relations between your two opposition groups?
Gaël Nofri : Let me correct you, there is only one group, it is the one born from the election: the Nice Bleu Marine group chaired by Guillaume Aral. It is composed of members of the FN, the Rassemblement Bleu Marine, and independents; which you know has always been my case. What matters is whether the elected officials remain faithful to the commitments and values defended before the voters, whether they work for Nice and remain attentive to the residents. Finally, whether they work for the public good, which alone should animate us. As for the attacks from one and the other, you know… I have no intention of engaging in gesticulations and airbrushing with them. It is always much easier to accuse someone of being the source of their own failure than to question oneself and correct their mistakes. The leader who suffers a rout should not turn back to find someone to blame, he must assume his choices, his command, and its consequences. Politics is dying from its politicians irresponsible for their actions!
N-P : The opposition, although largely numerically minor, does not give the impression of being very reactive in criticizing the municipal policy led by Mayor Christian Estrosi. Now that your place is in the chamber, how do you plan to act?
Gaël Nofri : You are being harsh. The opposition is finding its footing and will – in any case, our group will. Guillaume Aral has denounced the scam of the Statue of Liberty (a copy sold at the price of the original) and Martine Martinon is waging trench warfare against the City’s policy of Dominique Estrosi-Sassone. None of this is insignificant.
Everyone, moreover, must find their footing, not just the opposition! After six years of unchallenged rule, Christian Estrosi will have to acclimatize to democracy, which, it seems, is not to his liking. For too long the Mayor has lived without opposition, or rather with a mute opposition. Obstacles and infringements on the rights of the opposition have multiplied since April, but I am convinced that over time we will manage to straighten the old tree felled by bad habits. This is how I intend my contribution to the Municipal Council: I want to work to ensure a genuine opposition exists.
When I say opposition, I do not mean systematic, sterile, and dogmatic opposition. But a force of vigilance, proposals, and indignation. To be credible, an opposition must be all of this at once. To be valid, it must allow itself no restrictions; to be more than just a minority, it must be independent.
N-P: What do you think are the hotter issues for this autumn?
Gaël Nofri : I believe that first and foremost there is this issue of democracy, this way of “doing politics”, that needs to be reformed. Then there are many projects to defend:
Security, which today is so poorly assured in Nice, is certainly not the “hot topic of the moment” but a true everyday scourge. Let’s not wait for the next tragedy, the next victim, to ask the right questions.
The tramway is unquestionably the topic of the moment, line 2 and its tunnel with the terrible risks and prohibitive cost attached to it concerns me. The Metropolis, in the current economic climate, does not have the means for this project. We have lost a mandate in the construction of lines 2 and 3; are we ready to lose 25 years in terms of investment capacities? Are we ready for local tax increases? Are we prepared for a guardianship?
Finally, I will add the Nice prison. I believe that by allowing it to remain in the city of Nice, Christian Estrosi made a monstrous mistake. Certainly, I think this position is electoralist on the eve of senatorial elections, but we must take responsibility, work on a territorial project, fight on such a complex subject instead of instrumentalizing it. The Nice prison does not belong in Vauban, Saint-Roch, or Pasteur. The threat made to neighborhoods of placing social housing instead of the prison is not worthy of our city. We do not build the future on the fear of the worst.
N-P: A personal question… how do you feel in the shoes of an elected official?
Gaël Nofri : Oh, you know, unlike a snake, a politician does not shed his skin.
No, I would simply say that I do feel a strong change on one point. For 10 years I have been a member of the City of Nice’s cabinet first, then Director of Cabinet elsewhere. I have seen, known, and thought about the problems and issues of a territory, a community. But always with the feeling that proposing to the elected official was doing his “job”. Today things are different: the boss is the Niçois. The work is not done unless we have achieved something. Even as part of the opposition, and thus the numerical minority, we must strive to gain action capabilities on reality, to question or evolve minds.
They attribute a lot of ambitions to me – more by fantasy than by knowledge of the character. My main ambition today is to be able to say in 2020 that I will have done something with this mandate. Now that the worker has the tool, it would not be a question of backing out in front of the work.
