While these rumors have been spreading for several days in the press, Anne Hidalgo herself had already said Saturday on TF1: "it is false, we have no subject of campaign financing", affirming "to sweep away " the question.
"There is really no problem with funding. Go see the consolidated accounts of the PS", insisted Olivier Faure to a few journalists including AFP, recalling that "if necessary, we have real estate to mortgage".
"We have a head office, not everyone has one, it is a security that others do not have," he added, five months before the election.
For now, "we have not yet applied for a loan" for the campaign and "it is not sure that we seek one", he added, while some media claim that banks have refused loans.
Olivier Faure explained that the amount of Anne Hidalgo's campaign will "not be the same as that of Benoît Hamon's campaign in 2017", but "we know that with 16 million euros, we can make 6% (the score of Benoît Hamon in 2017, note), it is not the money which conditions the result ".
Relegated in the polls behind the ecologist Yannick Jadot and the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon, her main competitors on the left, Anne Hidalgo still stagnates around 5% of voting intentions.
However, exceeding the 5% mark of the votes cast in the first round is crucial for the candidates because it multiplies tenfold the reimbursement of part of the campaign costs by the State.
© 2021 AFP