Black Diamond - Martin Walker [47]
The contrast between the mumbling Alphonse and the dynamic and dashing figure of Pons in his open-necked white shirt was more than striking. It was like a shift in time between Alphonse’s era of dull but worthy causes and a new politics of image and excitement. Bruno could almost feel a thrill of expectation run through the hall as Alphonse handed over the microphone. Pons climbed up onto a chair and beamed at the crowd.
“Can you all see me?” he asked. A roar came back. “Can you all hear me?” Another roar. “Welcome to everybody, Greens, Socialists, Communists and monarchists, you’re all welcome here tonight—just so long as you don’t try to build a sawmill where we’re trying to raise our children.”
Another roar, but this time it was mainly laughter. Bruno found himself warming to the man, Pons’s charm somehow coming across in public in a way that Bruno hadn’t seen before in St. Denis. People instinctively took to him. Within thirty seconds, Pons had established himself as a born speaker and politician. Even the hard-line old lefties who thought it heresy to have a common program with the Greens were smiling.
“Now I’m sorry to say that here comes the boring part, but it’s important for our kids and our town, so we’re going to have to put up with it as we go through the common program we’ve agreed upon.” He paused. “And if it’s going to be a dull ten minutes for you all, then think about those of us who spent ten hours drafting this.”
More laughter, and then a respectful and interested silence as Pons went through the ten points. Bruno wouldn’t have disagreed with a word of it, nor would Mayor Mangin, or any other politician in France. It was a list of generalities on jobs, the environment, low taxes and the importance of children and the elderly. It was so bland that Bruno felt his customary skepticism start to creep back.
“He’s a good speaker,” Pamela murmured, her eyes fixed on Pons. Beside her, Fabiola looked at Bruno and rolled her eyes. He winked back at her, relieved that he wasn’t the only one to find this party manifesto less than persuasive.
“Now you may say that this program is not very detailed, and you’d be right,” Pons went on, running his fingers through his already tousled hair. “But we have spent a lot of time working together on this and learning that we can indeed work together. What we have produced here is a set of binding principles. I repeat, binding principles. They are our bedrock, our moral and political foundation, and these principles will inform and shape every decision we take as members of your town council.
“I can’t tell you tonight what’s going to come up. Let’s be honest about this. I don’t know what new regulations on water supply and sewage we’ll get from Paris or what new rules on recycling we’ll get from Brussels. Nobody yet knows what the regional council may ask us to do about public housing or about building codes. But what we can promise you is that we’ll never violate the principles I have spelled out tonight. Your jobs are too important, and the air your children breathe is too important.”
“So why did you close down the sawmill and put me out of work?” came a shout from the crowd. Bruno turned and saw it was Marcel, the foreman at the sawmill.
“We didn’t,” Pons replied. “The law did that. We put up compromise after compromise to keep the sawmill open and to save your jobs. We offered to buy a piece of land that would have made the sawmill legal. And we all know who turned us down. We’ve done a lot here in St. Denis, all of us, all of you and every taxpayer, to help hang on to those jobs. Your own taxes helped pay for the last piece of antipollution equipment that was installed. And that was the right thing to do, because jobs and the environment have to go together.