It’s the shepherd’s response to the shepherdess, and it’s seasoned to say the least. In a new letter addressed Thursday to the mayor (Horizons) of Nice Christian Estrosi, who called on him at the start of the week to “stop” his “epistolary harassment”, the “attacks” on his management and to “reintroduce calm, reason”, Éric Ciotti explains that he does not really intend to grab the hand extended by his former ally. Quite the contrary. “Criticizing your record is not criticizing Nice […]”is to protect Nice, prepare its future, defend the general interest and seek the common good”, writes the deputy for Alpes-Maritimes, boss of LR, taking care to refer to his interlocutor who had spoken to him on familiar terms. .
“I will be grateful to you for not feigning any friendship towards me, after having undermined it with vile personal and family attacks which do you no credit,” he begins, just to set the mood. “Let us avoid insincerity and pretense,” the parliamentarian even decides on form. Basically, the one who no longer hides his ambitions for the next municipal elections is offering a debate to his opponent “in front of all the media” and “in the coming days”. His future candidacy seems self-evident. He explains that he is “convinced that our city needs courage and a new lease of life” and assures that he “works daily and discreetly but with total determination to [lui] build a better future.”
“Budget drift” and “tax increase”
Waiting for a response (which will not come, according to Christian Estrosi’s entourage, contacted by 20 minutes), Éric Ciotti “naturally maintains the tone of [ses] alerts which, unfortunately, all turned out to be relevant,” according to him. He recalls pell-mell, in his three-page missive sent to the press, “the budgetary drift”, “the increase in taxes”, “the galloping insecurity”, “the anarchic development of the Plaine du Var” or again “the deliberate cessation of work in Vésubie […] putting, in fact, people in danger” in this valley affected by storms Alex and Aline.
A point that made Christian Estrosi, president of the metropolis, in charge of these projects, jump. “You can always defend the idea that it is also the mayor of Nice who triggers natural disasters and bears “heavy responsibility” for storms at a time when the whole world is experiencing storm after storm, I think that does not convince “, he said in his own letter.
Éric Ciotti also adds a layer “on the destruction of the national theater of Nice, the Acropolis, the cinema library and the bowling alley” to continue the green flow of the city. A “budgetary madness”, an “economic error” and a “cultural disaster”, according to him.
Éric Ciotti also talks about the Nice attack
He finally attacks a very sensitive subject for Christian Estrosi. “I could have added the dramatic consequences of the management of the security system of July 14, 2016 when you had, as security deputy [à l’époque], responsible for the security of this event. But, I will be careful not to do so, as justice is seized,” he wrote.
The magistrates responsible for the judicial investigation into the security of the Promenade des Anglais on the evening of the attack recently extended their qualifications to counts of homicide and involuntary injuries. Four people, including the mayor of Nice, are placed under assisted witness status at this stage of the procedure.
They definitely won’t go on vacation together. And if it did not seem to be on the agenda, the prospect of a rapprochement between the two tenors of local politics seems to be moving a little further away. But the likelihood of seeing dirty laundry being washed in public has never been greater.