“You want to take my portrait? Wait, I’ll give myself a comb…” Smiling, Laurent Castillo slides his hand over his smooth scalp.
Humor to hide an embryo of unease? “I’m not used to all this yet, the doctor concedes, wiping his glasses. My world is more the operating room and the lecture halls of the faculty.”
He will have to get used to it. In fifth position on François-Xavier Bellamy’s LR list, the Nice surgeon was elected last night to the European Parliament.
A surprise for him, as well as for the Republican activists who know him neither from Eve nor from Adam. His political notoriety is inversely proportional to his reputation in the health sector.
“I was born in Casablanca, but I studied medicine in Nice, where one of my uncles lived, he explains. I finished majoring in surgery. I went into exile for a few months in Paris, then quickly returned to the sun!”
He then moved up the ranks. University professor for twenty years, president of the University Institute of the Face and Neck (IUFC) for a decade, Laurent Castillo knows his subject inside out.
“I wanted to move things forward”
He met Éric Ciotti during the creation of the IUFC. “I discovered someone who was consistent in his convictions”he summarizes.
And opinions similar to his: “In my family, we have always been right-wing. But, apart from a stint in the Giscardian youth movement, I had never gotten involved. The deterioration of the situation in the country in terms of health, security and education made me led to taking the plunge.”
In 2015, he agreed to be the deputy of Honoré Colomas – then mayor of Saint-André-de-la-Roche – in the departmental elections. Then, in 2022, he ran for legislative elections in the 3rd constituency of Alpes-Maritimes. With only 12.81% of the vote, he was severely beaten by the Estrosist candidate Philippe Pradal.
Nothing to discourage him. “I wanted to move things forward, he bursts into flames. S6 months before the Europeans, I told Ciotti that he could count on me if he needed someone to carry the theme of healthyou.”
He pauses, smiles wider: “I found out I was fifth on the list a week before the official announcement.”
“Give 100%”
He brushes aside his lack of political experience: “I am not going to Strasbourg to do ‘popol’, but to bring my expertise in the areas that I master. Europe can do better in terms of health, particularly in terms of prevention. Do you know that the Healthy life expectancy does not exceed 64 years in France, while it reaches 73 years in Sweden?
The surgeon is ready to give “100%” in his new functions… without giving up his medical activities. “I want to keep in touch with patients, he slips. It’s my anchor in real life.”
Far from a hemicycle that he is about to discover “with the express authorization of Laurence, my partner of 42 years, without whom I make no decisions.”
