His project seems increasingly clear for the fifth largest city in France. The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes and president of the Les Républicains party Eric Ciotti reaffirmed on Saturday that he was considering running for mayor of Nice in 2026, currently led by Christian Estrosi (Horizons), his former mentor, of whom he was parliamentary assistant.
“I am preparing to give new hope to Nice”, indicated the elected official, in Nice, on the sidelines of a rally to which he had called, against the demolition of the Palais des Congrès decided by the current mayor who wishes to extend in situ its green flow.
“So Wrong Choices”
He thus reiterated remarks made on Wednesday during the Daily program on TMC. “This situation, this anger of the people of Nice, these choices so erroneous require that there be a profound change in Nice”, insisted Eric Ciotti, who had already considered running for this election in 2020 before giving up for concern “ of appeasement”.
This Saturday, he gathered 700 people, according to the police, on the esplanade of the Acropolis Palace, the city’s convention center inaugurated in 1985 by the mayor at the time, Jacques Médecin. According to Christian Estrosi’s plans, this building should be demolished in the coming weeks to be rebuilt to the west of the city.
“A budgetary, economic, cultural madness”
Haranguing the crowd of his supporters, Eric Ciotti denounced what constitutes, according to him, “all at the same time a budgetary madness, an economic madness, a cultural madness, a nonsense and a major violation of any principle of responsibility and reality “.
“We do not destroy a convention center that was renovated less than ten years ago for an investment of several tens of millions of euros. We do not destroy a building whose eventual reconstruction will cost nearly 400 million euros, ”he said, sweeping away, in passing, the environmental arguments put forward by the town hall, which planned to replace it with a forest. urban. Eric Ciotti had already unsuccessfully opposed last year to the destruction of the building housing the National Theater of Nice (TNN), also razed to the benefit of a green space.