### Nice Premium: You announced your return to political life. Can you tell us the reasons?
Jaques Peyrat: After two and a half years of silence, I decided to come out of my reserve, considering that the actions undertaken by the new Nice municipality are not going in the right direction.
Excessive communication expenses for personal purposes, successive announcements quickly followed by the abandonment of announced projects (another tramway line, the Winter Olympics, the relocation of the Marriage Hall, the main Town Hall, the Nice Jazz Festival, the Observatory funicular, etc.) have become intolerable.
Local taxes have increased, although the Urban Community has taken on a number of skills which, in my opinion, could have remained municipal.
The demanding exercise of ministerial functions deprives the City of the attentive presence of its Mayor, and the lack of restraint on the part of certain elected officials led me to have the first of them condemned for defamation.
### Nice Premium: What are your grievances against the current management and what do you propose for the future?
JP: Our Town Hall has become a bunker that has nothing in common with what should be a “Common House.” I deplore that the Municipal Services, like those of the Urban Community, could not be grouped as we had planned on the Gare du Sud grounds, which our team had acquired to create a Great Administrative Center.
The new Football Stadium has not yet been undertaken, nor has the extension of Boulevard Slama, the second and third tramway lines, or the extension of the 1st tram line to the rebuilt Pasteur Hospital within the project I had previously initiated.
At the end of our first term (1995-2001), our municipal team, with the city’s officials, had developed a Decennial Urban Project (P.U.D) of 70 city development projects for which we set the cost and term. Forty of these projects were completed during the second term (2001-2008), and about thirty are still to be launched. These are the ones I would like to finish to perfect the City’s development in the 21st century.
We started from the realization, which does not seem concerning for the new municipal majority, that Nice, France’s 5th-largest city in terms of population, suffered from a dire misfortune: administratively being only the 27th city in France (after the 22 regional capitals and the capitals of overseas departments and territories).
This is why we, with our partners, pooled all our efforts to, crossing the Var, form an Agglomeration Community of 23 supportive Communes and create from scratch the METROPOLE COTE-d’AZUR, as well as its instrument for economic growth, the OPERATION OF NATIONAL INTEREST in the Var Plain (now called ECO-VALLEY!).
This Var Plain is a considerable stake for our City, as well as for the Department, the Region, and the National Territory.
### NP: Is that why you are running again in the upcoming cantonal elections in the 14th canton?
JP: Indeed, this is why I decided to resume my previous roles as a general councilor, positions which I twice held in the 14th canton, covering part of this strategic stake that is the Var Plain, for the cantonal elections on March 20, 2011.
Indeed, it is here at our City’s Eastern extremity that the economic destiny will be played out, from the Airport (the second-largest national airport in passenger traffic), the National Interest Market, which should be relocated to free up space that could be designated for the Multimodal Station. We hope the TGV and the Court of Appeal will finally arrive here, as they are still missing in our Department.
### Nice Premium: What would be your projects and ideas to develop this canton?
JP: Along the Var river, which needs to be developed with its turbulent flow, water expanses, and canals, modern, dynamic agriculture meeting the needs of our population could develop from reserved areas.
An Exhibition Palace, so necessary for economic development, should be set up there, simultaneously reserving spaces for the establishment of new Businesses or Industries, as was done in the past in Carros and Sophia-Antipolis.
Naturally, the Grand Stadium of the City of Nice will find its place here, as we had planned in Saint-Isidore where we had purchased the necessary land for a large-scale sports development.
It is because I am aware that our City’s fate is tied to this Eastern Canton of the City that I decided to return to public responsibilities.
The canton elections have just been set for France on March 20 and 27. I hope that our fellow citizens will understand its importance for our City and that everyone will fulfill their duty by voting in the last consultation of this kind, as the Government of our Country has decided on significant territorial modifications that will grant local elected officials increased responsibilities.
