They entered the home stretch. While some candidates are already guaranteed to be present in the first round of the presidential election on April 10, others are struggling in the race for 500 elected sponsorships, a sine qua non for claiming in the race for the Elysée. The collection period ends on March 4.
Seven weeks before the ballot, six candidates are guaranteed to run. In the top three, we find Valérie Pécresse (1,945 sponsorships), Emmanuel Macron (1,345), who has not yet officially declared himself, and Anne Hidalgo (1,074). The LR and PS candidates as well as the outgoing president have just been joined by Nathalie Arthaud (529), tied with Fabien Roussel (529) and Jean Lassalle (503), according to the latest count published by the Constitutional Council on February 17. .
For the other candidates, the place is still not guaranteed. If Yannick Jadot approaches the threshold of 500 sponsorships with only 10 signatures missing, others, such as Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, Philippe Poutou, Christiane Taubira and Hélène Thouy, are far the 500 signature mark. They only have 12 days left to find them, and some are expressing concern that they won’t get them.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, 379 sponsorships, but “worried”
The leader of Debout la France said to himself “worry” with its 379 supporters officially counted by the Constitutional Council, during its appearance on the 1 p.m. newspaper of TF1 on Saturday. Candidate for the third time in the presidential election, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan claims to have “480 real commitments”. “I miss 20”, he said, apparently counting the promises of sponsorships garnered. The sovereignist denounced “the pressure on the freedom of mayors”, urging them to be “free” to give their signature to the candidate of their choice, “because the quality of the presidential election, that is to say the diversity of the choice, depends on[eux]“.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan also criticized the “sponsorship bank” of François Bayrou, from which he cannot benefit, accusing “the President of the Republic to choose his competitors himself”. The president of the MoDem, an ally of Emmanuel Macron, offered to help candidates in need of signatures from elected officials with a “sponsorship bank”, a website where mayors are invited to gather in order to distribute their signatures. But this aid is only intended for candidates reaching 10% in the polls on voting intentions. A threshold that the deputy of Essonne, which peaks at 2%, does not reach.
#Sponsorships : Are you confident about your qualification on March 4th?
️ @dupontaignan
“I am worried, I am at 480. There is pressure on the mayors. We are stealing the presidential election from the French.”live in #LE13H of @TF1 pic.twitter.com/WxVnJLw3Kx
— TF1Info (@TF1Info) February 19, 2022
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 370 sponsorships and “rebellious” “not reassured”
“We are not worried, but not reassured”slipped the coordinator of La France insoumiseAdrien Quatennens, at ParisianFriday, February 18. “We are missing 130” sponsorships, had quantified the day before on franceinfo the LFI deputy from the North, ensuring that “work continues” and calling “to the elect”.
The leader of the “rebellious” deputies, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, had also tabled a bill establishing a citizen sponsorship procedure for the candidacy for the presidential election, on October 26, 2020. The text does not call into question causes the principle of a filter to participate in the election, but he proposes that it be entrusted “directly to citizens in the same way as to elected officials”.
Marine Le Pen, 366 sponsorships, but “a terrifying situation”
“We don’t have the sponsorships. It’s a democratically terrifying situation. I’ve never been so worried“, assured the candidate of the National Rally, invited from”Political questions” on France Inter and franceinfoSunday. “Today, I miss about fifty sponsorships”, explained Marine Le Pen, who said she was “extremely worried” because “many candidates are in the same situation as[elle]“.
Since September, Marine Le Pen’s campaign team has been “in the field” looking for these sponsorships, according to him. The candidate launched a call for “emergency” to all mayors “who would find it unheard of, scandalous, extremely serious, that someone who was in the second round of the presidential election and who can win this election in 2022, cannot, for administrative reasons, be present in this electoral competition”.
Marine Le Pen also insisted on “congratulate François Bayrou for his sponsorship bank initiative”, assuring that if it were to have to dip into this bank, it would do so.
Marine Le Pen: “We don’t have the sponsorships. It’s a democratically terrifying situation. I’ve never been so worried. I’m missing around fifty sponsorships” #PolQuestions pic.twitter.com/7jd6O1Yw2z
– France Inter (@franceinter) February 20, 2022
Eric Zemmour, 291 sponsorships and “no certainty”
the Reconquest candidate! n / A “no certainty” to reach 500 sponsorships within the time limit, he said during his visit to the “Big meeting” Europe 1/CNews/The echoes, Sunday. “It’s very hard“, assured Eric Zemmour. “We spends hours on the phone, my friend Philippe de Villiers talks for hours with the mayors, Guillaume Peltier talks for hours with the mayors, I myself spend a lot of time phoning the mayors to try to convince them”, did he describe.
Swearing not to be “assured of nothing” as for his presence in the first round, Eric Zemmour warned that his inability to appear would be “revealing a diversion of this sponsorship procedure”.
“I have no certainty”, declared Éric Zemmour concerning the collection of all of his sponsorships before March 4, in #LeGrandRDV pic.twitter.com/3uPpdh2lm4
— CNEWS (@CNEWS) February 20, 2022
Philippe Poutou, 199 sponsorships but “it’s not dead”
“Let’s fight for those 500 referrals.” Philippe Poutou wants to believe it. The car worker, candidate for the third time with the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), claims to have “a hundred sponsorship promises in the hands”, in a video posted Thursday on his Twitter account. He would therefore have to materialize them and find around 200 other sponsorships in the remaining twelve days.
For Philippe Poutou, “it’s not dead”. “He five years ago, we were almost the same and we had managed to get around the dam”, he recalled before launching an appeal to all elected officials to “this democratic gesture”, by sponsoring the NPA. “Candidatures like ours must be present, for political questions obviously, because we are anti-capitalists, but also for social questions, because we are the rare employees to be candidates in this election.
Philippe Poutou denounces this sponsorship system as “deeply undemocratic” and also condemns the “sponsorship bank” of the boss of the MoDem, “completely outlawed”. For the far-left candidate, “it is the proof of a political power which tries to dismiss candidacies like ours”.
199 sponsorships arrived at the Constitutional Council, a hundred others in the process of going up. Despite the pressures, we are at the same level as 5 years ago. But our presence is not guaranteed. Elected officials, mayors, each sponsorship will count. Make this democratic gesture! pic.twitter.com/XWMuHzfIuK
— Philippe Poutou (@PhilippePoutou) February 17, 2022
Christiane Taubira, 86 sponsorships and “a democratic questioning”
The left-wing candidate, designated during the popular Primary, did not hide being in “a democratic question” as for the 86 sponsorships she obtained, when she was the guest of “BFM Politique” on BFMTV, Sunday. “We had more than 600 sponsorship promises, so there is an explanation to be found between having so many sponsorship promises and having so few sponsorships materialized”, did she raise.
the “withdrawal” of the Radical Left Party of Christiane Taubira’s campaign in mid-February cast further doubt on the candidacy of the former Minister of Justice, who has not taken off since his appointment at the end of January.
For Christiane Taubira, her failure to collect 500 sponsorships would mean that a democratic process, the Popular Primary, which mobilized “nearly half a million people”, “would be prevented by an administrative device” and “we would deprive young people of the political outlet of their expectations”.
Sponsors: Christiane Taubira (@ChTaubira) believes that “we are in a democratic questioning” pic.twitter.com/BwTIXbi0qq
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) February 20, 2022
Hélène Thouy, 74 sponsorships and a “difficult task”
The lawyer, co-founder and co-president of the Animalist Party, who is credited with 0 to 2% of the voting intentions, claims to have had “300 pledges of support”, corn “elected officials explain to us that they are under pressure for subsidies, from departmental and regional councils”she revealed in an interview with West France, Friday, February 18. Hélène Thouy, who denounced pressure on the Association of Mayors of France, hopes that the situation can be “unlock”.
“We are used to being made difficult and never giving up,” she wrote on her Twitter account on Friday.. “15 days left! With you, we can do it for the animals”hammered the candidate, who invites citizens to encourage their mayor to sponsor the Animalist Party.