“We need to communicate with the press. We have been discreet since my announcement of candidacy without participating in polemics. We prioritized work and have set the idea box in motion.” Patrick Mottard thus justifies the meeting arranged with the press for late Wednesday morning. “The program will come when the time is right,” he warns as a prelude. Therefore, journalists will not get their “first municipal program.” They weren’t really expecting it and would have been surprised.
The presentation of the Nice Autrement Charter is not just an excuse to appear. “It was necessary to affirm the philosophy of our approach,” says the former socialist candidate of 2001. Now a dissident, he took on his professor persona to pedagogically explain the different points of his charter, structured around two objectives: “Doing politics differently in Nice” and “Making a different policy for Nice.” The 12 commitments address important themes: economy, social matters, housing, culture, institutional, university, security, equipment, neighborhood life, sustainable development, sports… Some points emerge, like the appreciation of municipal employees on whom Patrick Mottard plans to rely, or housing: “It’s an essential issue. This morning, in response to the France Bleu Azur journalist’s question about what my priority would be if there could only be one, I answered without hesitation: housing.” 150,000 copies of the Nice Autrement Charter will be distributed to the people of Nice starting Saturday.
Patrick Mottard invited a large number of his “lieutenants” to his press conference to “give faces to Nice Autrement.” He introduces them: “They are not necessarily well-known, but different women and men with different political backgrounds, generations, and professions.” Some faces are known, like Dominique Boy Mottard, Pierre Laigle, or Céline Lacroix, while others are much less. He amusingly nicknames them “momos” (moral mobiles).
The head of the momos takes the opportunity to analyze the Nice municipal tableau: “There are two semifinals, and everyone will position themselves in competition within their camp. If the campaign goes well and without a hitch, it is possible to unite in the second round.” Until then, many things will happen in Nice Autrement and elsewhere.
