The announcement had been made with great fanfare using advertising posters and all available means of communication across the region. Department officials had received repeated instructions, ordering them to provide lists of those present. Several thousand people, that was the objective.
Martine Vassal, President of the Bouches-du-Rhône Department and the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis, wanted her New Year address to the public on 30 January to be striking, massive and, in truth, completely disproportionate. Is this really sensible when we know that the Bouches-du-Rhône Department is in a state of near-bankruptcy, the result of a calamitous budgetary and financial policy pursued over the last few years?
Does it really fall to the taxpayer in the Bouches-du-Rhône to fund this display? Is this not ill-timed clientelism given the context?
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