The city hall of Nice has once again become the scene of a police and judicial episode we’d prefer to see on our screens rather than right outside our homes. A new suspicion of corruption looms over a high-profile hotel transaction!
Indeed, this path was first tread by Michel Vialatte, the first of many to fall, who was convicted in connection with fraud related to the construction project of the Grande Stade de Nice, followed then by a regular series of other cases involving communications, sports, associations, and more recently, real estate fraud.
We have yet to digest Michel, Dominique, Anne-Marie, Xavier, and the list goes on, when we are once again presented with a series of other “presumed innocents” who are still “imagined guilty” by a Nicean justice system that is not in the habit of launching such operations without serious suspicions.
Will Martial Meunier-Jourde be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, a vase already full and quite chipped? This is what many local officials in both the opposition and the ranks of a largely honest majority, who must again face accusations that invariably taint them somewhat, expect.
In this context, Patrick Mottard, the leader of Nice Plurielle, has officially asked the Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Prefect Pierre Breuil, to dissolve the Nice City Council under Article L2121-6 of the General Code of Territorial Collectives stating that a city council can only be dissolved by a motivated decree, issued in a council of ministers and published in the Official Journal. If urgent, it can be temporarily suspended by a motivated order from the State representative in the department. The duration of the suspension may not exceed one month.
Other reactions were not long in coming, and Patrick Allemand highlighted that following Jacques Peyrat’s promise to fight corruption at the city hall after the Vialatte affair, “It is clear that the mayor has scraped little. It wasn’t he who carried out an effective action against corruption, but the justice system.” Jean-Christophe Picard did not mince words either, specifying that “the mayor, in his capacity as head of the administration, signs recruitment orders. As such, he is obviously responsible for the quality of the municipal staff. Jacques Peyrat turns out to be a bad employer, hence a bad Mayor.”
Yesterday, we learned from our colleagues at Nissa 2008 that the chief of the municipal police was also taken into custody in the investigation currently affecting the City Hall.
One more, or one too many? More to come in another episode of this Nissa not always as “bela” as that!
