Nice Premium: You’ve been campaigning for a few weeks. What is your overall analysis of this campaign?
Hervé Caël: Above all, it’s about meetings, exchanges, and exceptional emotional moments.
But also, there is a growing distrust of “politicians” with a great risk, that of abstention. The people of Nice are disgusted by the attitude of some politicians, which contributes even more to degrading the image of politics (accumulation of mandates, demagogic promises, disdain for voters…)
Nice Premium: What has been the most difficult part? Putting together a list? Developing a program? Communicating? Funding?
Hervé Caël: Without a doubt, communication with access to “major” media. Equality of opportunity and resources is not respected. The question of the legitimacy of candidacies should not arise. There are 8 lists competing. Some receive “support” from local authorities, others do not; some are highlighted in the press, others are not; some are overvalued in polls, others are penalized…
Nice Premium: During this campaign, what has surprised, amazed, or shocked you?
Hervé Caël: The demagogic bidding war on both sides, and the promises that will lead to disillusioned outcomes.
Nice Premium: Let’s talk about your program. What subjects emerge from your campaign: Housing, Transportation, the stadium, culture, or health?
Hervé Caël: All these points pertain to the daily life of the people of Nice and are at the forefront of our list’s concerns. Before discussing these themes, I would like to highlight a unanimous demand, the cleanliness of the city, remind of our ecological requirement, and add another concern: security.
The fight against insecurity must be considered overall and not demagogically.
It is necessary to generalize neighborhood police stations that will be open 24 hours a day, strengthen the police presence on the ground, and improve coordination between law enforcement agencies.
However, the fight against insecurity also involves other solutions: Utilizing the allocation of social housing to promote social mixing and the re-implementation of municipal services, at the heart of all neighborhoods, to embody security and public service (Making available to all people of Nice—no matter their district—all proximity services: personal services, from early childhood to the “third age”, sports and cultural facilities, community halls, administrative procedures…), recruitment of building caretakers.
Insecurity also concerns road delinquency in the city which affects pedestrians and cyclists.
Nice Premium: What are your proposals for housing?
Hervé Caël: Housing, the largest budget item for the people of Nice, is a priority in our program. Studies show a shortage of 2,000 housing units per year in Nice. Too many people of Nice work in the city and must find housing outside it.
The issue of “expensive rents” is a question of supply and demand. An operation to identify land and establish land reserves is essential. The city’s political will in favor of housing (especially for active workers) will be manifested by incorporating concrete measures in the PLU and the SCOT (Territorial Coherence Scheme) (increasing the right to build for housing). There needs to be an incentive to return vacant housing to the market through attractive taxation.
The number of social housing units constructed per year must be doubled.
Social housing should not be concentrated in certain areas of Nice. Social mixing in the allocation of social housing is a factor in integration and fighting insecurity. The city must exercise its right of preemption to buy and rehabilitate existing apartments. Planned development zones must be created in which 40% of the housing will be rented out at controlled prices.
It is necessary to renovate the dilapidated housing of the HLM office to return them to the market.
It is necessary to increase the turnover of the rental stock by periodically reassessing the situation of tenants.
We will propose to tenants to become owners of the apartments they occupy.
Nice Premium: Transportation and the Tram in particular?
Hervé Caël: The issue of the tramway cannot be considered in isolation. In fact, the question is about travel within the city of Nice.
We refuse any dogmatism: that of exclusive public transport as well as that of the car being supreme. We refuse to oppose the development of public transport and the construction of parking lots for ideological reasons.
We wish to develop non-polluting means of travel:
– We will facilitate the secure movement of pedestrians thanks to wide, clean, shaded, and uncluttered sidewalks, and we will multiply the number of walking buses (school pick-ups on foot, supervised by adults);
– We will favor travel by bike by creating protected bike lanes, setting up a system of urban bikes for shared use, and establishing locations for bikes on buses, trains, and trams.
We will prioritize public transport by instituting a single bus/tram/train ticket and the equivalent of a “carte orange”, developing the capacity of park-and-ride facilities, instituting preferential parking rates for residents, increasing the frequency of buses, optimizing the Pignes train, creating an SNCF stop at Magnan, working to ensure the future LGV line serves the city center, introducing a maritime shuttle between the port and the airport and constructing, without delay, new tram lines that must link Ariane (extension of line 1) and the port to the administrative county center (and, eventually, Sophia-Antipolis).
Nice Premium: The Stadium?
Hervé Caël: The question of the “big stadium” must be part of a new sports policy in Nice: Proximity, “elites” and large facilities.
Sports practice must be encouraged by renovating and creating local sports facilities (playing fields and multipurpose rooms) open to all.
We will support the action of sports associations and clubs by redefining the criteria for aid. The number of license holders (mass sport) is a major point, but not the only one. Disciplines that carry the colors of Nice on the podiums (water polo, ice hockey…) must also be supported.
There needs to be the appointment of a deputy exclusively in charge of the sports domain.
For the facilities:
– Necessity of a large 36,000-seat stadium in the Plaine du Var that will allow, within 2 to 3 years, to offer large clubs a venue worthy of their ambitions and to host major national and international events in Nice.
– At Ray: A multidisciplinary and local sports center. A recreational and sports space (like the “Coliseum of Amiens”).
Nice Premium: Culture?
Hervé Caël: There was a time when Nice was at the forefront of culture on the French Riviera, and Marseille was a cultural desert. Gradually, it was a case of the tide turning: Nice was impoverished as Marseille enriched.
The resounding failure, from the pre-selection jury, of Nice’s bid for the title of “European Capital of Culture in 2013” should serve as a wake-up call to rethink the cultural policy in Nice.
The taxpayers’ money invested in this risky venture should not be lost. Nice must once again become an attractive city for national and international tourism. Culture is a key point in this development. The next municipal team must relaunch the events presented in the Nice dossier of the candidacy.
However, culture should not be limited to the essential need to restore the tourist image of Nice. Culture, in all its forms (culture, entertainment, animation…) must also be expressed in terms of proximity and accessibility by preserving the historical heritage of the city, developing cultural facilities in each neighborhood, exhibiting works of art in all public spaces, financially supporting live shows and cultural events, launching a festival of Occitan music and a dance festival, bringing about a participatory free carnival and opening a Carnival Museum, creating a City of Arts with a new cinémathèque at the Gare du Sud, supporting the teaching of the culture and language of Nice in schools.
The associative sector must be involved in the cultural policy of the city of Nice. In this regard, the project of the “Entre-Pont” is particularly interesting (Preservation of the “halle Spada”, a professional artistic creation space, a place of life for the neighborhood (multimedia showcase, artistic workshops for residents, and, we hope soon, a multipurpose performance hall.)
Nice Premium: Health?
Hervé Caël: Quite curiously for a local election, “medical franchising” has become an issue in the Nice municipal campaign!!! On one side we have a candidate, Secretary of State, thus bound by governmental solidarity on this issue, on the other side a candidate who proposes “the creation of a health check for 50 € to compensate for medical franchises”, for 20 to 25,000 seniors of Nice…
Fundamentally, medical franchising seems to be measures full of common sense, driven by good intentions… But on closer inspection… The management of pathologies related to aging should be an effort of national solidarity. However, medical franchising places the financial burden not on the population as a whole, but exclusively on the sick!!! They serve to mask the difficulties in filling the hole in health insurance. The deficit in health insurance is due to all health expenditures. Revenue, whatever its origins, attempts to cover this deficit. The memory of the automobile vignette, whose revenue was supposed to improve the living conditions of our elders, is still very present in our memories.
Medical franchising is an inadmissible deception of the French.
The demagogic bidding war is not more so…
Nice benefits from a significant number of health professionals and technical platforms that should cover the medical needs of our fellow citizens:
The points of our program on health are as follows:
– A primary care offer close to home
– A public/private collaboration, between a CHU that plays its hospital-university role and private poles that diversify the care offer.
– A prevention of risks policy that begins from an early age:
– Nutrition in school canteens
– Fresh fruit bars in all playgrounds
– Fighting addictions of all kinds
– Participation in prevention and screening campaigns
– Actions on environmental risk factors by reducing exposure to pollution and aggressions of all kinds
– Improvement of housing and living environment
– Promoting sports activity
Keeping our seniors in Nice:
– Encouraging home maintenance
– Part-time day or night or full-time accommodation center for dependent people.
We also dedicate a substantial chapter to the place of people with disabilities in the city.
Nice Premium:
You, like most of the candidates, have targeted Christian Estrosi. Are we really in a configuration of Anything but Estrosi? And why?
Hervé Caël: We do not position ourselves against this or that candidate (each camp having its own dissidents, they do it very well among themselves. The most violent attacks are exchanged within families.)
We have chosen to campaign on our values, on our program, and not against X or Y.
Nice Premium: How was the association of parties and the mixing of colors from your list Nice Rainbow born?
Hervé Caël: From a double observation:
1/ The people of Nice demand unity rather than division on personal issues
2/ With the PRG and independent Ecologists, we have an agreement on an ethical charter, on values, and on a program. Why, under these circumstances, present ourselves separately?
To the orange of MoDem and the old (faithful) of the UDF have thus joined the PRG and the independent ecologists, but also people from civil society, associations, trade union leaders… and disappointed members of the UMP and the PS.
Nice Premium: What will you do in case of presence in the second round? And in case you are not present?
Hervé Caël: We will continue the defense of our values and our program in any case.
Nice Premium: What will your day be like this Sunday?
Hervé Caël: I VOTE, and I invite all the people of Nice to do the same. The discredit of “politics” maintained by some (who benefits from the crime?) should not make us forget this right, this duty, dearly won by our ancestors. On March 9, eight lists compete for the votes of the people of Nice. The entire political spectrum is represented, from the extreme right to the extreme left, not to mention the possibility of voting blank.
Nice Premium: What score would be a disappointment for you and conversely a satisfaction?
Hervé Caël: I will not engage in the game of predictions. The question is not about the disappointment or satisfaction of one man, but about the future composition of the City Council in Nice, the conception of local democracy, the participation of citizens…
Nice Premium: Finally, a common question to all candidates: what message do you wish to convey to the voters of Nice and internet users of Nice-Premium?
Hervé Caël: The political life of Nice is certainly at a turning point in its history. The people of Nice will choose the list that, coming out on top in the vote whatever its score, will have a comfortable majority to manage the city. But the choice also concerns the diversity of their representation in the municipal assembly.
Monopolies of power are never good.
The municipal vote indeed allows both to establish a comfortable majority and to ensure the representation of the entire population. If we are in the majority, we will implement our program. If we are in the opposition, our attitude during the mandate will not be sectarian or dogmatic. We will support the projects that are in the interest of the community, we will amend the perfectible files, we will strongly oppose the proposals that do not respect our ethics, our values.
