“As candidates on the unifying list led by Christian Estrosi, we commit by signing this charter to exercise our mandate tomorrow in the service of the people of Nice, prioritizing the general and local interest over any particular interest, and making integrity, ethics, exemplariness, and honesty the primary requirements of our mandate.”
This declaration, both grandiloquent and solemn, fits into the ambiguous line in which populism and its variations have led public debate.
Hence this paradoxical shift that turns a preliminary condition into an objective to subscribe to.
“There is only one nobility, and it lies in virtue,” we read in Juvenal’s Satires (III,8,v.20).
In fact, what could be more normal than “integrity, ethics, exemplarity, honesty” for a candidate for public office and an elected official? Could we imagine the opposite?
“Ipsa virtus pretium sui est” (“virtue is its own reward”), wrote Seneca in “De vita beata.”
Everything had already been said. Isn’t it unnecessary to add more?
