The sponsorship race is entering the home straight. Letters must arrive before Friday March 4 at the Constitutional Council. Several candidates claim to have difficulty in gathering the 500 signatures requested. This is particularly the case of Eric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon or even Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. The Head of Government, Jean Castex, asked local elected officials to provide their sponsorship. The Prime Minister recalls that this approach is not synonymous with political support. Corn this situation angers Joël Balandraud. The mayor of Évron is also the president in Mayenne of the Association of Mayors of France: “it would be a major democratic crisis if candidates could not present themselves. Suddenly, the mayors are called to safeguard the Republic and its values in the coming week. But that would not be normal, and above all complicated to manage after on the ground for us local elected officials. The situation is complicated. We find it legitimate that the candidates concerned are presented to the vote of the French. We call on the mayors to the rescue, but in the end, the mayor who will sign will attach his name to a candidate who does not make him feel like it“.
The Mayenne elected official also specifies that these sponsorships, “it’s not the fair where you can do what you want. For example, sweepstakes are completely unconstitutional. As soon as the Constitutional Council knows that a mayor has drawn lots for the candidate he is going to sponsor, he cancels this sponsorship.“
Finally, for Joël Balandraud, who refutes any form of pressure from political leaders on other elected officials, this situation for the Presidential “is also demonstrating the huge gap between the territory, the country, local elected officials and the national level.“
About 41,000 elected officials can bring their signature to a presidential candidate. Slightly more than a third actually do so at each election of the President of the Republic.