He can be criticized for many reasons, particularly for his Ptolemaic approach to any public function, but one must acknowledge Christian Estrosi’s first-class political intuition and his ability not to engage in battles lost in advance!
These legislative elections go hand in hand with the presidential election, when his insightful analysis was more than prescient and proved prophetic regarding the catastrophic outcome of Franรงois Fillon’s candidacy.
What a difference compared to some of his colleagues within his political family who have shown a mole’s vision, whereas he demonstrated a keener eye and understood that the anticipated upheaval would not have benefited his political family, anchored on a clerical-identity line.
When the wind blows, one should go with it rather than oppose it, and the new cannot just be the old returning.
His comment below must be a bitter read for Franรงois Baroin, who saw himself as Prime Minister several times, as Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-hand man during the right-wing primary, Franรงois Fillon’s during the presidential campaign, and as the leader of his party during the legislative aiming for a victory and the ensuing cohabitation!
It will be even more so, on a local level, for his party rival Eric Ciotti for whom this legislative was nothing other than the 3rd round of the presidential election. We’ve seen better omens!
Christian Estrosi, on the other hand, understood well that Emmanuel Macron would benefit from the disillusionment with both the left and the right and resolved the issue of French politics by providing a different answer: he executed a symbolic and political hold-up by moving faster and stronger.
