If the environmentalists, thanks to coalition lists with the left, experienced a fairly significant electoral wave nationally for this second round of municipal elections, with emblematic victories, in Nice, however, nothing, not even a ripple.
With 11.30% in the first round, the list led by Jean-Marc Governatori achieved the worst result for environmentalist lists in major cities in France. In the second round, in a three-way contest and in the absence of any other leftist lists, Jean-Marc Governatori achieved 19.30%, which is 7.5 points less than the total left/environmentalist score in the first round. A mediocre result that does not prevent him from declaring: “Almost 20% is a historic score, the best score in France for cities over 15,000 inhabitants for a 100% environmentalist list.”
Forgotten are the 11.30% from the first round?? Why this reference to municipalities of 15,000 inhabitants? Forgotten that Nice is the 5th largest city in France and that the comparison should be made with Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse…?
Jean-Marc Governatori, who has a rather unique conception of intellectual rigor, is struggling to justify a result that, in the context of a national wave of the left and environmentalism, is not good.
He barely achieved 1.5 points more than Patrick Allemand in 2014 (17.84%), who was in a much less favorable context, with a protest vote against the PS at the time, and a four-way contest with a Bettati who played the “neither left nor right” card alongside Benoît Kandel and Marc Concas (ex PS). Incidentally, several of JM Governatori’s running mates, including some prominent ones, were back then on Olivier Bettati’s list (1), the same Olivier Bettati who, a few months later, was to lead the FN list in the Alpes-Maritimes for the Regional elections. Thus verifying the old adage: “neither left nor right” always ends up on the right.
In the last quarter of 2019, work had been underway for several months between leftist forces and EELV. But the arrival of Jean-Marc Governatori with the AEI and his control over the ecological list sank the possibility for Nice to join the momentum of the left and ecological lists that marked the first and second rounds. Governatori’s background, personality, positions, and his “neither left, nor right” stance heavily influenced the election.
And contrary to what happened in other cities in France, of Nice’s size, like Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, or Toulouse, Nice was left out.
Let’s hope, for the future, that all parties will be able to analyze the reasons for this failure…
Robert Injey
