On Wednesday night, the façade of UDR deputy Bernard Chaix’s store was vandalized with graffiti. Christian Estrosi condemned the graffiti this morning on his X account, suggesting that the graffiti was linked to a judicial case involving the deputy’s son.
It was during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday that the person responsible for the graffiti is said to have acted. The graffiti along the entire length of the Chaix décoration store, owned by the deputy of the same name, situated on Place Jean Médecin, was directed at the deputy’s son. Indeed, it read “Romain Chaix rapist”. The mayor of Nice was the first to address the issue, firmly denouncing it in a series of posts on X, where he claimed that a judicial investigation was concerning the family of Bernard Chaix. At least three posts were made, all deleted within an eight-minute interval. Too late to quell the crisis, the UDR deputy and close associate of Éric Ciotti filed a defamation complaint against both X for the graffiti and against Christian Estrosi.
First clash between the Estrosi and Ciotti camps
“No doubt: the campaign is well and truly underway”, stated Bernard Chaix in his statement published at 10 o’clock on his X account. He also justified his complaint against the current mayor of Nice: “In the face of false, unfounded attacks and slanderous insinuations circulating on social media, I have decided to file a defamation complaint against Christian Estrosi. […] there is no judicial case,” he concluded firmly.
Éric Ciotti, the former close friend turned rival of the mayor of Nice, wasted no time attacking his opponent ahead of the upcoming March election. In a post on X, he shared a screenshot of Christian Estrosi’s initial post, which was later deleted.
An attack that costs Christian Estrosi dearly
As support messages for Éric Ciotti’s ally have multiplied since this morning, one might wonder if the move was worth it for the candidate seeking a fifth reelection. It is unclear whether the assertion of a judicial investigation initiated by Christian Estrosi was a genuine error or a strategy aimed at destabilizing opponents. If the idea was to spotlight the allegations against Bernard Chaix’s son, it backfired. All attention is now focused on Christian Estrosi, pending a response that could undermine his campaign. In any case, the Nice public prosecutor’s office has indeed recorded the complaint against the city’s mayor, barely two months after the case involving allegations of misuse of public funds targeting him and his wife as well as the opening of an investigation concerning Eric Ciotti in the illegal listings case last month.
