“We do not change the rules of the game a few days before the match. “ Regularly criticized by many candidates, from Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Eric Zemmour, the system of five hundred sponsorships of elected officials necessary to stand for the presidential election will not be modified for the coming election, warned the Minister of interior, Gérard Darmanin, Tuesday January 11.
“The rules can always change since the Constitution then the law of the Republic provides for these provisions” most “Since I was old enough to look at political life, it’s always the chestnut tree of winter”, he continued on RTL, believing that it is “Scope of any candidate” to collect five hundred signatures, or less than 2% of the forty thousand elected officials who can grant their sponsorship. The Minister of the Interior recalled that “All the mayors of France, the departmental councilors, the regional councilors are capable of being able to answer and give their sponsorship to a candidate, it is part of the rules of the Republic”.
“In each presidential election, we hear candidates say that they are not sure how to get their sponsorships. And then, finally, they get there… ”, also launched Tuesday morning on Europe 1, government spokesperson Gabriel Attal.
The day before, Jean-Luc Mélenchon had demanded the modification of this system by criticizing the reform dating from 2016 which had set up the regular publication by the Constitutional Council of the sponsorships received and validated for each candidate. “Let’s restore the anonymity of the sponsorships that [François] Holland and [Manuel] Valls had deleted in order to exert pressure “, he declared, believing that it was possible to pass an organic law “Before January 27” to do it. Until 2016, only five hundred sponsorships per candidate were made public by the Constitutional Council following drawing lots. But this request for express reform was refused Tuesday morning by Mr. Darmanin. “It is a law of 2016 which provided for the of sponsorships, this law was voted almost unanimously, on the right as on the left”, estimated the latter.
“Slowdown in sponsorship”
Mr. Mélenchon, who claims, to date, just under four hundred promises from elected officials, said on Monday that he had observed a “Slowdown in sponsorship” since several elections, because, according to him, “We have often confused the idea of sponsoring with that of supporting: we do not support, but we consider that a candidate is representative of a current of ideas in the country”.
But, for the president of the Association of Mayors of France, David Lisnard (Les Républicains), the reform of this sponsorship system cannot be done just before an election. « There must be a reflection on this subject at the start of the five-year term to see if the rules should be adapted., he explained on Tuesday in an interview with Figaro. This must be part of a global approach to the modernization of our institutions. » In this interview, Mr. Lisnard evokes several avenues for modification: a system with a share of signatures of elected officials and a threshold of citizens; the possibility of two sponsorships per elected (one of conviction and one to allow a candidate to present himself); or the return to anonymity of sponsorship, as was partially the case before the 2016 reform.
The mayor of Cannes, on the other hand, rejected Eric Zemmour’s proposal to set up a “pool” of local elected officials to help candidates obtain their five hundred sponsorships. The far-right candidate is increasing the number of trips now to try to obtain these famous five hundred sponsorships on which he stumbles – he claims to have obtained, to date, three hundred promises. To facilitate this quest, Mr. Zemmour appealed to Mr. Lisnard at the beginning of January on Europe 1, suggesting that he “Give the signatures to all the candidates who are at least 5% or 8% in the polls”.
“We can call it a “pool”, as Zemmour says, sponsorship is traced, it can never be anonymous. It is always individually attached to an elected official, so it is impossible to collectivize it., explains Mr. Lisnard. The AMF absolutely cannot intervene: it is not its role to block or endorse a suitor. »
