The electoral campaign is beginning to take shape, and each candidate is obliged to choose their main cause. For Patrick Allemand, the Socialist candidate, it will undoubtedly be the debt of the city of Nice and the Metropole, both entities led by Christian Estrosi, his traditional opponent.
A theme the Socialist Party has decided to wave in front of voters like a matador’s muleta before a bull. Let’s enter the arena…
The argument is sensitive given the outgoing mayor’s commitment not to raise local taxes during the next term, claiming not to have done so during the current term about to end (not counting the nearly 15% increase in 2009… But in politics, although one is obliged to speak the truth, one is not necessarily obliged to tell the whole truth!).
The Socialists have thus found a biting slogan regarding Christian Estrosi: “Son of Nice, father of debt,” alluding to the title of his latest work where the Mayor of Nice claims all his Nissart identity.
The response was not long in coming, and the Mayor of Nice convened a Municipal Council to obtain authorization to take legal action against these statements for “spreading false information” and “defamation.”
However, Patrick Allemand refutes this approach: “Political issues are not resolved in courtrooms,” and he retorts, “Christian Estrosi is a bit like Attila; wherever he goes, finances perish.”
Let’s turn to these finances. Fortunately, the figures* are not disputed by the two sides.
Only, Patrick Allemand sums them up to reach a total of 1.3 billion euros and concludes that “Since 2008, the overall debt burden has increased from 738.6 to 1,331 million euros, a rise of 80%.”
He also adds the debt of the General Council after the transition from Urban Community to Metropole in 2012, with the integration of its competencies under the new territorial authority, leading to a final comparison with other cities of comparable size which, according to the Socialist politician, makes Nice the most indebted per inhabitant with 3,673 euros.
And to assert, in his personal battle with the chief magistrate: “Christian Estrosi is a debt-producing machine. The debt champion had already got his hand in at the General Council (he was president from 2003 to 2008) with a sharp increase while his successor, Eric Ciotti, did no better.”
To conclude his indictment – a pre-emptive exercise perhaps? – by calling for a comparison with the situation of the Regional Council, one of the Nice mayor’s favorite targets: “In fifteen years, the PACA Regional Council increased its debt from 730 to 1,809 million euros, a variation of 1,079 million. Christian Estrosi, first at the CG 06 from 2003 to 2008, increased the debt by 657.7 million euros and from 2008 to 2013, as mayor of Nice and president of the Metropole, by 590.5 million euros. A comparable situation? Of course not, the figures clearly show the reality.”
For Patrick Allemand: “Whatever the authority he manages, the debt skyrockets. It is truly a debt-producing machine. It is my duty to give the people of Nice access to the figures, to show them the reality of their indebtedness and to denounce the irresponsible management of the Mayor of Nice.”
Now awaiting a response from the chief magistrate who fully rejects these accusations that are likely to become a true leitmotif in a high-speed municipal campaign…
