The opposition municipal councillor Marc Concas remains steadfast and is once again publicly proposing the implementation of a Cultural Orientation Debate to be integrated with the mandatory Budget Debate.
His request, during the last city council meeting, did not ultimately find favor in the eyes of the mayor of Nice and his municipal majority.
Furthermore, this rejection is rather curious: A demand for constructive opposition is made, and then when an interesting idea is proposed, it is not considered simply because it comes from… the opposition.
What fear is there of this confrontation of ideas debate?
But, as a good jurist, Marc Concas refers to Lucretius (De rerum natura): “Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat.”
You never know what the future holds…
Statement of Marc Concas
Culture is a major vector of economic and social development. It is also a formidable tool for integration essential to the life of a city.
At the city level, cultural policy must necessarily be organized to assess needs and set objectives. The cultural orientations of a city are at least as important as its budgetary orientations.
Unfortunately, and for a long time, the City of Nice has not been able to define a clear cultural policy. It is one of the few cities in France, and perhaps the only one, that does not currently have a deputy for culture, since cultural competences have been distributed among four elected officials, within areas with uncertain boundaries.
It is this lack of vision that led me to propose, in the last city council meeting dedicated to the Budget Orientation Debate for 2015, the implementation of a Cultural Orientation Debate.
The cultural agenda in Nice is immense with events and venues of national or international scope: the Carnival, the Nice Jazz Festival, the Matisse museum, the MAMAC, the Nice Observatory, etc…
However, the debates in the city council sessions are dedicated only to ad-hoc decisions based on the event calendar, without coherence and without a global vision.
One of the first cities in France to have implemented a cultural orientation debate is the city of Bordeaux.
I sincerely hope that the Mayor of Nice, who so loves to draw inspiration from his Bordeaux colleague’s achievements, will have the wisdom to propose this cultural orientation debate to us in 2015.
The implementation of a Cultural Orientation Debate would constitute a real innovation for our community. It would be a prerequisite to the great meeting that could be organized each year with all the cultural stakeholders in NICE, as we proposed during the election campaign by suggesting the creation of an annual Culture Forum.
Marc CONCAS
Municipal Councillor of NICE
Member of the group Mon Parti c’est Nice
