"We are at 391 (sponsorships) this (Sunday) morning, I miss the difference to go to 500", told the Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI Mr. Mélenchon, who is competing for the third time in the election presidential.
"That we understand each other well, to sponsor it is not to support", put forward the deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône.
"When an elected official sponsors me, he does not agree with me, he says that I have the right to be present in the name of democracy," he added.
Mr. Mélenchon regretted the "pressures" faced by elected officials when granting their sponsorship, and recalled that the LFI parliamentary group had tabled a proposal for an organic law establishing a procedure of 150,000 citizen sponsorships for the candidacy for the election presidential.
The LFI candidate also reacted strongly to the words of the socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo who, Sunday morning on Cnews-Europe 1, estimated that the candidates who failed to collect the 500 sponsorships for the presidential election "do not deserve to be there to participate".
"Too bad for them, that means that they have not convinced 500 mayors," said the mayor of Paris.
"They want to cook their meals between them," blasted Mr. Mélenchon.
He called for a reform of the electoral law fixed since 1962 and the establishment of the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage.
"What are you waiting for, that someone is prevented from being a candidate to react?", Launched Mr. Mélenchon in an exhortation to the rest of the political class.
On the far right, Eric Zemmour keeps repeating his difficulty in obtaining the 500 sponsorships, despite the good polls with which he is credited.
He appealed this week to the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) which replied that it had no competence in the matter.
© 2022 AFP