While the majority agrees on praising the new Promenade du Paillon, there is one who does not necessarily share this view. The campaign director for the upcoming National Front list in the Nice municipal elections has taken up the pen to express a contrary opinion just weeks ahead of the official campaign launch by various participants in this upcoming local election.
The green belt – opportunely renamed Promenade du Paillon since it is not very green – is an indisputable urban success. We shall see with time what becomes of it.
However, I regret that the chorus of praises generously offered by the local media, and brilliantly orchestrated by the office of the Mayor-candidate, did not allow for some common-sense arguments to be put forward which, while not detracting from the quality of the realization, would have tempered the judgment expressed, sought solutions to the real problems that remain: surprisingly high cost of development, questions about the cost of maintaining such a structure, consequences for the security policy of creating a new parks and gardens brigade, lack of crossings to connect the two “banks”, and finally, the absence of parking spaces that the delivery of already planned projects cannot compensate for.
Beyond this double observation, I nevertheless take from this project, promised by almost all candidates in the previous municipal election, a general political consideration… or more precisely, of local climate: the climate of Tarascon, dear to the famous Tartarin, seems to have migrated eastward to settle on the City of Nice.
Indeed, the speech of the Mayor of Nice at the inauguration of the Promenade du Paillon was astonishing, rich with an almost unprecedented emphasis. Under a Mayor’s advisor’s pen, in the mouth of Christian Estrosi, here is the wild rabbit turned into an African lion, the gardens of the Promenade transformed into the pyramids of Egypt and Christian Estrosi propelled Pharaoh of the two banks of the Paillon.
A Pharaoh who nonetheless has the peculiarity of taking some liberties compared to his distant ancestors of the Nile who proclaimed themselves as “Incarnate Truth”. However, with Christian Estrosi, the Truth is a relative and optional concept. Thus, when the Mayor of Nice generously compares the green belt to Central Park, I feel obliged to remind the Mayor that our 12 hectares fall quite short of his prestigious reference, with its 341 hectares of parks and gardens. Certainly, Nice is not New York, and far be it from anyone to make a situation a reproach against the Mayor; but then why does the latter strive for such misleading comparisons?
The problem in this affair is not so much the size of the project as the excessiveness of ambitions. The issue is not the number of trees on the Paillon, but the taste for excess; this habit of twisting reality to the point of falsehood, hoping in vain to establish a model for everything… The man who wanted to be Minister of Sports on the day of the Grand Stade inauguration, aimed for the Health portfolio during his visit to the Pasteur Hospital works, saw in his little manual for “taming” the Roma, for the use of all French Mayors, a residence permit for the Place Beauvau, did not hide his ambitions for Culture at the launch of the Matisse exhibition, undoubtedly dreams today of a large Ministry of City and Housing. Unless, like a pointillist painter, Christian Estrosi paints in strokes a larger canvas whose meaning would only be perceived by stepping back a little, in a comprehensive view.
Alas, TV bloopers remind us every day that wanting to be an artist is not enough to meet one’s Muse.
Also, although I am not an expert in Arts, I take the liberty to raise some doubts regarding the future reputation of this painter. For ultimately, he lacks what is essential in an artist: a soul, a style, a connection, an identity… A signature, dare I say.
In a nutshell, the greatest drama of Estrosi is finding no trace of Nice and the interest of the Niçoises in him.
