The mayor of Nice and former Republican, Christian Estrosi, calls on the right to form a coalition with the majority rather than isolating itself according to a “sectarian” vision which, according to him, Eric Ciotti would advocate.
The arrival of Rachida Dati to the government continues to spill ink and shake the right, it also revives the quarrel between Eric Ciotti and Christian Estrosi. While the first officially excluded the mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris from the Republicans the minute she was named Minister of Culture, the second is delighted to see Rachida Dati join the ranks of the executive. The mayor of Nice and vice-president of the Horizons party, Christian Estrosi, even declared Europe 1this Monday, January 15, see in this reshuffle an opportunity for the historic party of the right, when the boss of the Republicans denounces a betrayal.
A “sectarianism that does not resemble the Republicans at all”
It must be said that the appointment of Rachida Dati to the government serves the position of Christian Estrosi who also left Les Républicains preferring to join the right wing of the presidential majority in Edouard Philippe’s party. He assures that neither he nor the Parisian councilor have changed by leaving Les Républicains: “We have the same convictions”. It would rather be the right-wing party which would no longer be the same in closing in on itself too much according to the Nice resident. “Today, I see this kind of sectarianism which no longer resembles at all either the RPR, the UMP, or the Republicans […], where I had the pleasure of defending ideas. This sectarianism makes me think of Stalin, Stalin who said that to strengthen oneself, one must purify,” said the mayor, not without targeting Eric Ciotti, boss of the Republicans. The comparison established, the vice-president of Horizons went as far as ‘to defend the replacement of the deputy for Alpes-Maritimes at the head of the right: “To defend the general interest of our country, we need to counter, of course, the Stalinists”.
LR must “show intelligence”
The refusal of the right to get closer to the government of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, again in 2022 and since the desire of the Republicans to maintain a line, impassable under penalty of exclusion, between them and the majority is not foreign to the party’s loss of momentum. As since 2017, the message from the mayor of Nice to the right is the same: a call for the formation of a “coalition majority” which would, according to him, allow the right to influence decisions and the adoption of laws.
“The reshuffle is an opportunity, perhaps we need to show a little intelligence and say to ourselves that while there is a shift to the right […]we have the opportunity to finally make not a relative majority, but an absolute majority”, analyzes the elected official. This would be a new outstretched hand after that refused by LR, wrongly according to Christian Estrosi, in 2017: “It “There was so much talent at LR that we did not use to participate in government action where we could have had much better results.”