The young municipal and metropolitan councilor is, in fact, integrated into Christian Estrosi’s majority group.
Local referent and organizer of Marie-Christine Arnautu’s campaign during the 2014 municipal elections, he later fell out with her. After joining the municipal council following the resignation of one of his running mates, he founded the Independent Elected Officials group with other National Front dissidents (who have since returned to the fold), of which he is one of the two members, the other being Martine Martinon.
For several months now, he has been voting regularly with the municipal majority. This latest act marks his alignment with Christian Estrosi and the Sarkozist group, so powerful in the department.
As he himself says, “Let everyone measure the weight of their commitment and choice.”
We hope that in this gathering, he maintains his independence of mind and capacity for analysis… and that he remains a fine writer.
Statement by Gaël Nofri
In 2007, many of us voted for Nicolas Sarkozy. How beautiful was that hope of a renewed right, after what we considered to be so many years of stagnation. After what seemed to us to be lethargy, we were ready to regain activity, the desire to control our destiny. During the campaign, we dreamed of identity, nation, sovereignty, order, and an unashamed right. At the Toulon speech, supported by a quote from Chateaubriand, we were promised that we would regain the pride of being French, the love of our national history, the memory of our country’s actions across the world…
I also remember 2012. I campaigned for Marine Le Pen. We forgive those we have never loved, not those who have deceived us. For five years, Nicolas Sarkozy was the man of the Treaty of Lisbon, the reintegration of France into NATO’s integrated command, the war in Libya, the opening to the Left, the end of dual penalties… We had so many grievances about this term and the outgoing President. They had dashed our hopes and left only the bitter feeling of vanished dreams and a betrayal equal to the hopes they had raised.
Of course, I harbor no illusions today. I know I will have disappointments. That my vision of Europe, the family, and even more generally of France will not emerge triumphant from the mandate born of the polls if Nicolas Sarkozy prevails. But the choice of 2017 should not, and must no longer, be one of misguided passions and short-lived illusions; it must be a reasoned and rational vote, even if that perhaps means a less passionate one.
Thus, I know that Nicolas Sarkozy, while not entirely my political figure, can be the man of a policy, which is already something. At a time when the core of the actions of whoever comes to power will be to “exercise power,” Nicolas Sarkozy is today the only one capable of regaining a capacity for action. On the international stage, against the unions, pressure groups, media diktats, or the politicization of the judiciary, it is clear that the former President of the Republic is the only one now demonstrating both the will and the ability to regain a capacity for action, a “power.”
In 2017, because we must vote considering the stakes of 2017 and not the lost hopes without return of 2007 or the grievances of 2012, it will be Sarkozy, without passion, but not without reasons.
