Sure,
Nice Premium: Jérôme Rivière, you are going to chair the support committee for Philippe de Villiers. Can you explain this choice?
Jérôme Rivière: First, let’s not forget that I chose not to support Nicolas Sarkozy’s candidacy, but I am far from being the only one at the UMP. Nearly a third of the members indeed refused to vote for his sole candidacy despite the tens of emails, SMS messages, and phone calls they each received individually.
What pressure, what resistance!
The discomfort that the media is careful not to show stems from the ambiguity of his discourse which poorly hides the lack of firmness in his politics. This ambiguity leads him to make increasingly significant concessions to left-wing ideas: abolition of double jeopardy, voting rights for foreigners, refusal to eliminate or even to reform State Medical Assistance, adherence to the principle of enforceable housing rights, and public funding of mosques.
In this major election for the future of our country, I have chosen to commit strongly, and I have agreed to become the President of the national support committee for Philippe de Villiers’ candidacy. The reasons are numerous. For example, because he has clearly committed against the communalism that questions the identity of France. Or again, he frames his actions within a national vision as understood by Academician Ernest Renan, “a great solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made and those one is prepared to make again,” and he rejects hypocritical solutions such as selective immigration or positive discrimination.
As I did at the podium of the National Assembly, Philippe de Villiers has raised the political problem posed by Islam in France and the abandonment of secularism that would result from amending the 1905 Law to allow funding of mosques with public state money.
Finally, on immigration, Philippe de Villiers has clearly committed to ending family reunification and funding for healthcare for illegal foreigners (AME).
NP: Is there a connection with the loss of your UMP nomination for the upcoming legislative elections in the first district of Nice?
JR: If the ideas I defend were so abominable, it would have been necessary to exclude me from the UMP; that has never been discussed. I have long understood that my freedom of mind and tone are the reasons for the non-renewal of my nomination.
The choice made in the district, because the candidacy that opposes me is plainly ridiculous, shows in broad daylight the authoritarian spirit that surrounds Nicolas Sarkozy and Christian Estrosi is trying to establish in the department.
Obviously, this is not enough to make me renounce my convictions.
NP: Does this mean that you will run in the legislative elections under the colors of the Movement for France?
JR: I will obviously be a candidate, but it is far too early to know the colors that will face each other in the legislative elections. Don’t forget that this deadline will have to register candidates in relation to the elected President. I am certain that the presidential election will allow a major gathering of the Patriotic Governmental Right to form. I hope for this, and it is these colors, these right-wing convictions that will need to be defended.
NP: Why do you think Philippe De Villiers is a credible candidate for the upcoming presidential elections?
JR: You know, contrary to what Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign slogan claims, not everything is possible. As the Quebecois novelist Monique Corriveau beautifully wrote, “everything remains possible, as long as one chooses nothing”, and I fear that the candidate supported by the UMP has yet chosen nothing. Philippe de Villiers, however, offers choices to our citizens, whether it’s in terms of housing, work, immigration, or defense. These choices are not always easy, but he does not seek to flatter the French by promising everything and its opposite.
NP: What is your view on the various presidential campaigns of other candidates?
JR: I will only say one word about Ségolène Royal’s campaign, what more to say about the substance? I do not know her proposals, nor does she, since she is waiting for answers from her participatory debates. It is an unbelievable approach to start listening to the French at the very moment when we expect politicians to share their proposals!
A second remark about sovereignty. Madame Royal is a supporter of the European Constitution which proposed to the French people to explicitly renounce our national sovereignty. I note that she proposes to recognize, for Quebec, which is not a country, this sovereignty that she refuses for France which she claims to lead.
To conclude, I will tell those who might be tempted by a Royal vote to take a look at the Socialist Party’s program. Indeed, in the absence of the candidate’s program, they will have to make do with that of the PS: it’s a return to the old fantasies of the years 1981/83. The worst left.
NP: Finally, who do you imagine in the second round of the presidential elections?
JR: Five years ago, at the same time, the newspaper Le Monde headlined “Jospin at the Elysée, it’s done”. The PS candidate was leading with 32% in the polls… I see significant surprises, the best one will be the presence of Philippe de Villiers!
