If the decision to run for Nice’s mayor was anything but simple, the “new” challenger of Christian Estrosi seems to have fully embraced it: “I want to be the candidate of proximity, of returning to basics, of common sense against the autocratic management of one man and a small group of technocrats increasingly disconnected from reality and especially from the people of Nice.”
The break with Christian Estrosi is profound; the episode of the City Council’s deliberation authorizing the mayor to take legal action in case of dissemination of information damaging to the city’s image, which Olivier Bettati opposed, was of course just an opportunity to deliver the final blow. It is clear that the rift between the two goes much further back to other more or less similar situations.
But in politics, everything is connected, and one would be wrong to forget the impact of last year’s low-key battle between the Fillonists and the Copéists during the election of the UMP president.
In short, nothing is going well between the two men: “And yet, I served him loyally for 25 years, but today Christian Estrosi is no longer the same person. For him, politics has become a sequence of communications, for me it is about listening to people and trying to solve their problems,” added the new competitor in the upcoming municipal election.
What will be the political line, the guiding principle, the name of this list that claims to be neither right nor left but at the service of the community and the citizens?
“The name has not been chosen yet and we will do so with those who wish to join me in this adventure, of which I am fully aware of all the risks. I call upon people from socio-professional and associative life. There is a reservoir of talents here that must be asked to do something for their city without ideological prejudices.”
But a question immediately arises: How to convey the message of wanting to differentiate, moreover opposing a sitting mayor after having been part of his group for an entire term?
For Olivier Bettati, the answer is simple: “Yes, I know, that is what will be said and reproached to me throughout the campaign. And I accept it! However, I was in the classic case of an elected official who must be loyal to his party, and therefore his conduct can only be influenced by it. Today I have changed my vision of things and I say it clearly… I prefer to lose an election and keep my convictions, rather than win thanks to arrangements…” Let those understand who will or can.
Finally, no names of possible candidates, no presentation of a program, except for a few words spoken here and there: Budgetary balance, intelligent bridges between civil society and public administration, management based on common sense and good ideas…
All of this seems a bit like a Niçoise salad but, as the neo-candidate Olivier Bettati reminds us: “Yes, maybe it’s true, but when it comes to Niçoise salad: Everyone loves it!”
It’s on…
