That’s where most of our readers have been during the just-ended municipal elections. Of EU citizens with the right to vote only a small number had signed up by the cut-off date of December 31st, less than 700 Brits in the Alpes-Maritimes and the Var, for example. But it’s been an entertaining campaign, especially in Nice and Cannes; sadly, we have to print before the results are known.

In Nice it seemed for a long time that political big hitter Christian Estrosi would walk into City Hall just like that. Then things turned sour and his poll ratings slumped with a fifth of his support evaporating within a few weeks before the New Year (a result oddly overlooked by Nice-Matin). Why so? Observers suggest he was seen as altogether too close to the increasingly unpopular Sarkozy, while a significant number of niçois (not all geriatrics) were upset by his efforts to distance himself from the era of his former patron Jacques Médecin. Meanwhile his opponent on the right, outgoing Mayor Jacques Peyrat, doubled his poll rating and won support for his outright expression of Nice localism, unmistakably mingled with a LePenist nationalism. We were pretty sure, though, that Estrosi would win.

In Cannes three right-wing candidates have been fighting like rats in a sack, Philippe Tabarot, Jean Martinez and Philippe Buerch, united only by their desire to get rid of outgoing Mayor Brochand. The most dramatic touch to the campaign came when former Mayor Michel Mouillot showed up, with now no trace of his prison pallor, to support Martinez. He was given “an ovation”. Never forget: the Riviera loves its crooked pols.

From Riviera Reporter Issue 126: April/May 2008

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