“Politics is not an exact science” – said Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
Christian Estrosi could have the right to utter the same words at the next Municipal Council meeting, referring to the pricing of extracurricular activities following the implementation of the new school rhythm organization, which he has made a symbol of his aversion to anything related to government policy.
Follow the facts…
The Nice municipality had decided to charge for the activities it organizes after school hours: 15 euros per month per child. No free service as in the vast majority of cities (right and left alike), nor even a pricing adjustment according to family income.
The worst situation compared to the 32 largest cities.
“Unacceptable” reacted the Socialist opposition while a collective had organized a petition that began gathering the support of a few hundred parents.
Children taken hostage in a war of the trenches?
Certainly, justifying this decision furthermore by budgetary impacts and even more so by dubious comparisons of local taxes with other cities, did not really hold water.
And, with a particularly astute and competent first deputy in finance, who could believe it wouldn’t be possible to find in the municipal budget, with a minimal exercise of “spending review,” the few million euros needed to fund extracurricular support that interests nearly 30,000 young inhabitants of Nice?
But Christian Estrosi has this ability to sense the wind, to understand when a decision is not quite right and that he should not follow through but instead return to it to correct it.
This was also the case with the Trachel Street issue.
So, we return to free service for the most disadvantaged families, we relax the system with the half-price option and… thereby, pull the rug out from under the opposition, which loses one of its rare occasions to manifest itself.
Of course, the decision is framed with subtle accounting reasoning, but the essence is there: They intelligently reverse an erroneous decision.
And, for show, they add the sale of the villa, a communal property, where the current rector of the academy is housed: A blow to the Ministry of National Education which will have to take care of re-housing her.
And once again, it is a chancellor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who comes to our aid: “Politics is not a science… but an art!”
Spoken by the one who was called the “Iron Chancellor,” it is nonetheless a reference.
Hats off to the artist!
