An image was needed to express “the democratic urgency”. In front of a coffin symbolically filled with ballots, at the foot of the headquarters of the Association of French Mayors (AMF) in Paris, the Animalist Party called on Saturday, February 12, the mayors to sponsor their candidate Hélène Thouy for “save democracy” and the “pluralism” rather than supporting candidates who have already passed the 500 sponsorship mark. As of February 10last update of the number of initials received by the Constitutional Council, Mr. Thouy had collected 56 signatures.
“Of the 500 sponsorships needed to run for president, some have way more than they need, 1,050 and 1,249, and are bragging on the internet”, denounced the co-founder of the Animalist Party during this demonstration, referring to the number of sponsorships respectively obtained at this stage by Emmanuel Macron and Valérie Pécresse. The latter are indeed part of the three candidates who have for the moment exceeded the minimum number of sponsorships necessary to be able to stand for the presidential election, with the socialist Anne Hidalgo, the latter having received 790 signatures on this date.
A concern for “democratic pluralism”
For Hélène Thouy, “with each additional sponsorship [en faveur de ces candidats ayant déjà atteint ce seuil] (…)it is a nail that is driven into this coffin of democracy and political pluralism”. This is why mayors should “stop sponsoring those who already have too many sponsorships” and which, by accumulating them, “dries up democracy”, according to her. His party, founded in 2016, therefore chose to first challenge the city councilors who represent “ 80% of people who can give their sponsorship”, out of the 42,000 authorized elected officials, as the lawyer at the Bordeaux bar explained.
Since the submission of sponsorships to the Constitutional Council opened on January 27, several elected officials had indicated their intention to sponsor the candidate, she said, but would have withdrawn because “of intimidation “, threats of “loss of subsidies for the municipality” or of “refusal of nomination” for the next elections.
The candidate, who defends in particular the antispeciesist association L214, thus called on the city councilors to mobilize for the animal cause: “Have the courage to fight against the pressures, the intimidation of all those who have an interest in what our word does not carry”. In May 2019, the Animalist Party won 2.2% of the vote in the European elections.
At the microphone of Franceinfo Saturday, Hélène Thouy estimated that the animal cause “is a major issue” of the presidential election and that there are “very high expectations of citizens on this subject”. Thus, the candidate considers that the collection of sponsorships should not be “a real difficulty” for the party as is however the case, stressing that rallying the ecologist Yannick Jadot is not an option, “because he is not ambitious enough, like the others, on the animal question”.
A bank of sponsorships for “big candidates”
Three days before this mobilization in front of the headquarters of the AMF, Wednesday, February 9, the MoDem had confirmed to the World have established a reserve of “200 to 300” elected to sponsor the “big” presidential candidates who are struggling to reach 500 sponsorships. The following day, the party’s president, François Bayrou, announced the creation of a site, entitled Notredémocratie.fr, to facilitate the sponsorship of mayors towards these candidates, provided that the latter “reach 10% in the polls”, that is “4 million voting intentions”.
A threshold which in fact excludes the candidate of the Animalist Party but rather targets Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, who have experienced high scores at the ballot box in the past or in voting projections, and have repeatedly underlined their difficulties in obtaining the 500 signatures. The candidate of La France insoumise has so far collected 258 signatures, that of Reconquest! collected 181, while the National Rally candidate obtained 274.
Others, such as Philippe Poutou, candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), who has so far obtained 146 signatures, or even Christiane Taubira, winner of the Popular Primary who has only collected 47 sponsorships, are far from 500 mark but have until March 4 to obtain them.
While there are many presidential candidates criticizing the current sponsorship system, the Ipsos-Sopra Steria electoral panel, in partnership with the Sciences Po Political Research Center (Cevipof) and the Jean Jaurès Foundation for The world, shows that it is also weakly supported by the French, with just over half (53%) of respondents believing that it is a “good system” compared to 47% who describe it as “bad system”.