“Anyway, he wasn’t born in Nice”: this is what a florist from Cours Saleya said about the dismissal of Benoît Kandel by the mayor of Nice.
To this lady and all those who think like her, I want to make a small demonstration here. On the 28th, as every year, the municipality organized (a great idea…) a memory tour to commemorate the Liberation of Nice and honor the memory of the 32 heroes who died so that our city could be freed from the Germans.
However, if we look at the list of these 32 fighters, we find only 12 were from Nice (Eugène Alentchenko, Jean-Marc Ballestra, Fortuné Barralis, Jean-Marc Bobichon, Raymond Carmine, Marius Fantino, Joseph Giuge, Jean Gordolon, Auguste Gouirand, Basile Rossi, Roger Simon, Verdun Vial) and 2 originally from the County (Paul Vallaghe from Menton and Antoine Genouillac from Contes).
On the other hand, a majority came from outside. From all over France: Jean Henri Authement (Créteil), Antoine Codaccioni (Bilia, Corsica), Raymond Albin (Pignans, Var), Auguste Bogniot (Draguignan), Roger Boyer (the man from Square, Basses Alpes), Lucien Chervin (Paris), Emile Krieger (Moselle), Antoine Suarez (Bordeaux), Jean Girone (Vaucluse).
And, much to the dismay of this lady and the staunch advocates of local identity, 10 were born abroad: 6 in Italy (Auguste Arnaudo, Jean Badino, Vincent Boscarolo, Sauveur Bernardo, Venance Cantergiani, Michel Ravera), 1 in Spain (Jean Morales), 1 in Belgium (Alphonse Cornil) and 1 in Turkey (Arisdakesse Arzoumanian).
Thus, 20 of these 32 heroes sacrificed their lives for Nice. Yet, “they weren’t born in Nice”…
Patrick Mottard
