This is not support, but a choice in the name of democracy, warns the person concerned. François Bayrou, the president of the Democratic Movement (MoDem), will grant his sponsorship to Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Rally (RN) for the presidential election. He made this announcement on Sunday February 27 from the “Grand Jury” RTL-LCI-Le Figaro.
“I cannot defend before my fellow citizens of all opinions the idea that the President of the French Republic would be elected in an election from which the main candidates would be excluded”explained Mr. Bayrou, a close ally of outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, who is at the origin of an initiative of “sponsorship bank” regrouping according to him nearly 400 elected officials.
“It is to save democracy, but our signature is not worth supporthe insisted. I have decided to take my share of this burden and – this does not exactly correspond to the dream I have of political engagement – I will give my signature to Mrs Le Pen. »
42,433 elected officials authorized to present a candidate
Candidates for the presidential election have until Friday, March 4 at 6 p.m. to justify 500 sponsorships. According to the latest count of the Constitutional Council, published Thursday, February 24, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour are missing at least between 80 and 90, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon, struggling for a while, finally collected the number of signatures. required.
Initially planned by François Bayrou to “save” the candidates considered the most legitimate according to him, that is to say credited with at least 10% in the voting intentions determined by the polling companies, the mechanism will be able to benefit to others: the sovereignist candidate of Debout la France, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (457 sponsorships), that of the Republican People’s Union, François Asselineau (247), the candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party, Philippe Poutou (243), the candidate of Permanent Revolution, Anasse Kazib (130), or the former minister of justice Christiane Taubira (128) are in particular in difficulty. This will be at the discretion of the signatories.
According to the latest count published Thursday by the Constitutional Council, 10,265 sponsorships of elected officials, out of 42,433 entitled to present a candidate, had been validated. This number was 14,296 in 2017.
