Why do elected officials refuse to sponsor certain presidential candidates?

Victor Chabert and Mélina Facchin, edited by Ugo Pascolo 6:10 am, January 12, 2022

This is a concern that comes back every five years for some contenders for the Élysée Palace, at each presidential election.

As the poll approaches, candidates like Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Eric Zemmour are faced with the difficulty of bringing together the sacrosanct 500 sponsorships of elected officials to have the right to compete in the arena.

But the collection is difficult, few elected officials venture into the signatures.

They don't want political pressure, their municipal councils say they are apolitical, or the parties are less structured.

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Non-anonymity, the main reason for reluctance

Whatever the reason given, the figures speak for themselves: out of the 42,000 French elected officials authorized to sponsor a candidate for the presidential election, just over 14,000 complied with the exercise in 2017. An exacerbated trend by the publication of their name since the last presidential election and the concern about pressure exerted by their opponents. When a mayor wants, for example, to redo a roundabout in his municipality, he is helped by an inter-municipality, a department or a region which is not necessarily of the same political color. However, publicly displaying its sponsorship could cause it to lose essential funding.

This is what Eric Zemmour denounced at the microphone of Europe 1 on January 6, citing "a brake". He is not the only one. During a press conference formalizing his sponsorship to Marine Le Pen, on the occasion of the candidate's trip to Béziers, Robert Ménard estimated that "today the blackmailing of subsidies from the departments and regions is formidably effective ". According to him, all the mayors "lived" it. And the city councilor to add: "When I hear a certain number of elected officials say 'but no, it is not true, the mayor of a small town does what he wants', it is not true."

Moreover, with regard to the 2017 sponsorships, three-quarters were given by municipal and inter-municipal elected officials.

However, the trend is towards depoliticization in small towns, and many unlicensed mayors want to stay that way.

A massive phenomenon among the newly elected, points out Guilhem Serieys, responsible for the sponsorship of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

"Among the new mayors I often hear, and I use their words: 'Our municipal council is politically plural', or else 'it is apolitical, therefore we refuse to take a position in the debate for the presidential election.'"

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"It's finally the comeback of the major parties"

Not to mention that the big parties often have elected and experienced political cadres, with important networks, who are responsible for collecting sponsorship. But in Eric Zemmour's party, this is not the case, for example. The "ambassadors" as they are called at Reconquête, are not known, and do not know anyone. In the Bas-Rhin, two activists, Grégory and Emmanuel, who do this work from home on a voluntary basis two to three hours a day in the hope of seeing their champion access the Élysée for five years. And they do not hide it, for them one of the difficulties in collecting signatures comes from the fact that their party is new in the French political landscape.

"We are a young party, we have barely 35 days of existence. We have no local elected officials, and therefore it is finally the comeback of the big parties", they argue. "Take the case of Madame Hidalgo, she will probably have between 2,000 and 3,000 signatures to make 2% at the exit. When we find ourselves young party like ours, without local roots, it is difficult to turn to certain people." And if they did not wish to reveal the number of pledges of sponsorships collected, they assure that Eric Zemmour will have his 500 signatures.

But apart from the anxiety of not being able to show up, one of the main reasons for the anger of the parties concerned is the waste of time and energy in collecting the precious signatures.

Because during this time, their opponents, like The Republicans for example, can afford to campaign fully.

What are the sponsorship rules?

It is not only the mayors who can give sponsorship, there are also the presidents of intermunicipal bodies, parliamentarians, departmental and regional councilors.

They must come from at least 30 different overseas departments or communities.

The number of elected officials from the same department or community cannot exceed 10% of the total number of sponsorships required, therefore 50 per candidate.

They then have from January 30 to March 4 to send their signature, only one per elected, non-modifiable, to the Constitutional Council, which will be responsible for verifying their validity.

The latter will publish on its site the names of the mayors and candidates they decide to support.

It will update it continuously, at least twice a week.

Finally, the wise will publish on March 5, the list of candidates officially running for the presidential election.