Nice Premium: Jérôme Rivière, how did you experience your expulsion from the UMP?
Jérôme Rivière: As you understand, in the Alpes-Maritimes, Estrosi is trying to monopolize all the available mandates for himself and his close associates. As President of UMP 06, he threw his full weight behind swinging the first district. The vote of the militants which I dispute and for which I am still awaiting a court decision is the pretext for an “exceptional” exclusion procedure.
As a Member of Parliament, I sit today, as yesterday, and like the day after the election if voters renew their trust in the UMP group.
Many very high-ranking party officials have called me to encourage me and remind me that only the victory counts for the party, which will rush to lift my exclusion after June 17!
Will the UMP Deputy take any actions following this decision?
JR: You know, now is no longer the time for party intrigue. I am a candidate as a deputy of the outgoing majority. I sit with the UMP group in the National Assembly, and through my actions, I want to support Nicolas Sarkozy, ensuring he fulfills his campaign promises.
For instance, I want to help him ensure there’s no voting rights for foreigners, to defend secularism, and to fight against the expensive euro that undermines the purchasing power of our citizens. We must vote very soon on the bill that will end the indebtedness of repatriates, the law that will exempt inheritances. In short, we have a full plate for the country, not for the parties.
NP: Will you still be a candidate in the legislative elections in the 1st district and why?
JR: Yes, of course, I am a candidate. Firstly, because it is not the parties that decide the candidacies. Nicolas Sarkozy just before the first round of the presidential election reminded us that a politician must have his country in mind and not his party. That’s my philosophy!
And because our district deserves better than a parachuted collaborator in our neighborhoods to serve Estrosi. I know Ciotti explains that his grandfather was a merchant in the district. But it’s not his grandfather who is running. It’s him, and he’s indeed parachuted.
I have been an elected official in this district for 10 years. Being a Member of Parliament is not a simple mandate, it certainly requires skills, but also proximity and listening. The MP of our district must be the voice of the people of Nice in Paris and not the voice of the government in Nice!!!
Finally, having been in the National Assembly for five years, I have a record I am very proud of to defend. On my website www.jerome-riviere.fr my 2002 manifesto is still online. I said what I wanted to do, and I did what I had said. You know this is not so often the case!
NP: Under what label will you present your candidacy and your project?
JR: My project is simple, to strengthen Nicolas Sarkozy’s majority by being the candidate that unifies the entire right. This was his successful bet, it’s mine in the first district. Regarding the label, once again, I am the outgoing UMP deputy, and it is in this same group that I will sit after the election if the people of Nice renew their trust in me.
NP: Jérôme Rivière, Patrick Allemand, Eric Ciotti… The field is strong in the first. How do you see the second round and the outcome of this election?
JR: I am campaigning to be qualified at the end of the second round and to win on June 17 by a wide gathering around my project, my actions, and what I have managed to embody for 10 years.
In 2002, I also experienced a kind of primary in the first round. The system of buddies and scheming doesn’t like me because I am not cut from that cloth! So, regularly the bigwigs of the moment want to oust me, but I feel that our citizens want independent representatives from all these schemes… And after all, that’s democracy, voters will decide, and that’s good.
