Why are legislative elections so important for parties?

• In France, the political parties are partly financed by public money, the manna is distributed thanks to the results of the legislative elections.

• This funding has existed since the early 1990s, in the heyday of party funding scandals.

• But this system also has perverse effects, which some want to reform.

On the evening of the first round of the legislative elections, the parties do not only count their votes, they count their money.

More exactly the public financing that they will receive during the legislature which begins.

The issue – not very public – has recently appeared implicitly in discussions between left-wing parties to form the New People's Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), or between the components of the presidential majority.

tries to explain to you how and why the party purses are filled by the State with the help of Jean-Philippe Vachia, the president of the commission which controls all this.

How it works ?

Each year, the State reserves 66 million euros for the public of political parties.

It is the result of the legislative elections which is used to decide how this windfall will be distributed, in two stages.

First fraction: each political party which has obtained at least 1% of the votes in at least 50 constituencies will receive each year until the next legislative elections 1.42 euros per vote obtained.

Second fraction: each elected deputy gives the right to 37,280 euros per year to the party to which he is attached.

For this second fraction, each parliamentarian can choose to change affiliation each year if it pleases him.

“But it has to be for a party eligible for public funding!

“, specifies the president of the National Commission for campaign accounts and political financing, Jean-Philippe Vachia.

No question therefore once elected to create his own party to receive – neither seen nor known I confuse you – the 37,280 euros annually.

To remain eligible, the parties must submit their accounts each year to the CNCCFP, which decides on their good performance.

“In 2020, 34 parties received public funding,” says Jean-Philippe Vachia.

It seems like a lot, but there are very many overseas parties in this, for which the rules are a little different.

Another exception: since 2002, the financing is also indexed on the respect of the rules of parity for their candidates in the legislative elections.

“The further you move away from parity, the more your endowment is reduced.

Which was in a way taxed and donated to the parties that respected the rules of parity, ”explains the president of the CNCCFP.

For example, in 2020, LREM received 22.2 million euros, LR 12.9 million and the PS 6 million.

Why does it exist?

The Urba affair, the Île-de-France public procurement affair, the Elf affair, the Carrefour du développement affair, the Carignon affair, the Botton affair… The oldest and oldest among you will certainly remember that the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s were marked by countless political and financial affairs.

In the absence of very clear rules, almost all the parties are trying to find the parade to finance electoral campaigns whose cost explodes.

"At that time, there is a need for moralization of political life", recalls Jean-Philippe Vachia.

A first law was passed in 1988, it was amended many times and in 1990 the CNCCFP was created.

“To fight against dubious funding, political parties are guaranteed an ultimately public,” explains the chairman of the commission.

In addition to direct public funding, donations from legal persons (particularly companies) to political parties are prohibited.

For individuals, these are limited to 7,500 euros per year.

As for the others therefore, 66% can be deducted from income tax, which represents a kind of indirect public financing.

Disputed political financing cases have not completely disappeared, but the strict rules instituted have largely limited abuses.

What strategies for the parties?

These rules partly constrain the discussions for alliances before the legislative elections.

On the left, for example, it was unthinkable for each of the parties involved (insubordinate France, Europe-Ecologie – The Greens, Socialist Party, French Communist Party) to have less than 50 constituencies each in which to stand.

This is also the case: EELV will have candidates in 100 constituencies, the PS 70 and the PCF 50. Also, insubordinate France has agreed that there is no single funding association.

Clearly: each party keeps control of the money earned in the constituencies where it was in competition and on the deputies it will elect.

It is totally different in the majority.

The three parties that support Emmanuel Macron (La République en Marche, which will become Renaissance, the Democratic Movement and Horizon) will go to the elections under the banner “Together!

and under a single funding association.

It is then up to it each year to distribute the windfall among the various stakeholders.

It is a matter of keeping quiet each component of the majority: if one of them has any desire for independence by 2027, it will have to do without the money collected under the first fraction during the legislative elections of 2022. A real stone in the garden of Edouard Philippe who wanted to make the spoils of war with Horizon.

This choice seems to have discouraged some right-wing incumbents from going under the caudine forks of macronie:

Other solutions?

The operation set up some thirty years ago has perverse effects.

In particular, it has caused an inflation in the number of candidacies, on the part of small parties without hope of having elected members but who are trying to obtain this famous 1% in at least fifty constituencies.

In 2017 there were on average 12 candidates per constituency against between five or six maximum in 1988. The system also favors those who are already in place: difficult to really enter the game when you have no money.

Some think he is changing the system, like the economist Julia Cagé.

In

(Fayard), published in 2018, she proposes to remove the indexation of party funding on the results of legislative elections.

Instead, each citizen would have the power to allocate 7 euros of public money to the political party of their choice.

It could change each year, at the time of his tax return.

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• Legislative elections 2022

• Political party

• Funding

• Elections