The Nîmes Socialist Party is back and intends to have a say in the civic game

Les représentants du PS de Nîmes, autour du maire de Montpellier Michaël Delafosse. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET

Workshops, conferences, but above all, fieldwork to explain, convince and co-construct, with residents of all neighborhoods, a municipal project that suits them.

"Rather than fighting among ourselves, let's try to convince. It's up to us to work, to gain credibility before doing everything to win." Galvanized by the European elections where the Socialist Party established itself as the third political force in Nîmes, cooled by the legislative elections and government procrastination, the Nîmes Socialist Party wants to be a conqueror and a force for proposals this September.

Tackling the issue of security head-on

“For the moment, I really think that people are not thinking about who should be the leader for the municipal elections. What interests them is the project that we can propose,” says Nicolas Nadal. For the secretary of the Nîmes section, it is with the citizens that the key to building this project lies: “The time when we decided sitting on a chair in an office is over. We must go into the field, bring up the ideas of those who experience the problems of everyday life.” To do this, citizen workshops and forums will emerge in the coming months, until June 2025. With, for example, a theme that is traditionally said to be reserved for the right and which will bring together the forces of the left at the beginning of next year: security. “We must tackle this problem head on, argues Nicolas Nadal. We are obviously in a sovereign state, but the City clearly has a role to play with the strength of its municipal police. There are no miracle recipes, but we must get as close as possible to citizens who, today, are afraid to leave their homes because a drug dealer is making his law at the bottom of their building."

Education at the heart of the debate in October

With this in mind, the creation of a citizens' association, outside of political parties, is not excluded in order to work on developing a project for Nîmes by and for citizens. “At the end of October, we will address the theme of education,” continues the secretary of the local PS, who announces that a political figure of national stature, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister of National Education between 2014 and 2017, has already given an agreement in principle to come to the Gard on February 7. “Alongside him, we will also have men and women who have experience in the field.”