We were good forecasters in predicting that Jean-Christophe Lagarde’s victory in the election for the presidency of the national UDI would not remain without consequence at the local level.
Let us recall that the Radical Party supported the winner during the run-off, while the New Centre declared its support for Hervรฉ Morin. Will the new internal balances have repercussions in the Alpes-Maritimes? That was the question we asked ourselves when the results were announced: The answer is yes!
A week later, the inauguration of the Radical Party’s office in Nice, and one planned in Cannes in the near future, is a premonitory sign that a certain era is over: the UDI wants to regain its autonomy within the center-right universe… and the hyphen should be read attentively for its significance.
Laurent Henart, national president and mayor of Nancy, did not use diplomatic language: “We want to reaffirm our values of freedom, solidarity, Europeanism, and secularism and not undergo the rightward drift of the UMP if that becomes this party’s political and electoral line. Yes, we can be allies, but only within the framework of an agreement and not a priori in exchange for a few back seats,” said the man who seems destined to play an important role at the national level in the coming years.
Furthermore, he has left the door wide open to a centrist candidacy in the right-wing primary in 2016 or even in the 2017 presidential election!
As for local politics, which sees the UDI in a subordinate ally position to the UMP, the President of the Radical Party and Secretary General of the UDI kindly reminded us that the candidacies for elections are proposed by local bodies but must be validated at the national level… A change in sight for the candidate lists in the upcoming departmental elections?
In any case, the oldest party in France seems to have regained its color and ambition to play an active role in the centrist federation to have its own visibility in local politics.
The presence of several elected officials such as Serge Amar (deputy mayor of Antibes), Anne Satonnet (deputy mayor of Vence and departmental councilor), Nicole Merlino, and Mathy Diouf (deputies in Nice) around Lilia Parisot and Hervรฉ Caรซl shows that a core group of leaders is forming… unless they were just there for the photo!
It feels like since yesterday, UDI 06 will be a little less New Centre and a bit more Radical Party…
To be continued!
