The bar is crossed and the ticket validated. By gathering, Tuesday, February 15, more than 500 sponsorships of elected officials – 509 exactly -, Nathalie Arthaud qualified for her third consecutive presidential election. The Lutte Ouvrière (LO) candidate will again try to make the voice of the Trotskyist movement heard at the national level, after two first confidential attempts in 2012 (0.56% of the vote) and 2017 (0.64%). One question remains, however: despite her modest political weight, how did Nathalie Arthaud so easily exceed a qualification threshold that Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen or Eric Zemmour are struggling to reach?
The far-left leader is not at her first attempt. In 2017, she gathered the necessary sponsorships in a short week. Five years earlier, she was even the first candidate in the running to declare that she had obtained her signatures, while the sponsorships collected by the candidates were not yet made public by the Constitutional Council as they were collected. , as they are now. The candidates of Lutte Ouvrière, Arlette Laguiller then Nathalie Arthaud, have thus never missed a presidential election since … 1969.
To explain this fine harvest of sponsorships, in this presidential election as in previous ones, the teacher from Seine-Saint-Denis confides that she has no “secret tank” or of “magical recipe”. The weight of Lutte Ouvrière appears to be very weak at the national level: the party has no parliamentarians or territorial councilors and claims only 16 elected members in the last municipal elections. LO cannot therefore count on its own elected officials to garner the 500 sponsorships required. Not enough to curb the ambitions of Nathalie Arthaud, who mocks those who are surprised to see her validate her candidacy so easily. “It is our local presence that explains these sponsorships”defends the candidate.
“We’re not aliens, LO doesn’t pop up every five years, it’s a small organization that exists all over the country.”
Nathalie Arthaudat franceinfo
If the presidential campaign is the time when LO can make its ideas heard the most, the party is not waiting for the last few weeks before this deadline to put itself in battle order. The modus operandi is precise: one year before the presidential election, the “local committees” of the party are responsible for crisscrossing the rural environment to target the precious signatures. “These are militant efforts for several months”recognizes the candidate. “It’s a real old-fashioned party, with a hierarchy and military discipline. Everyone knows what to do”explains to Marianne the journalist Laurent-David Samama, author of the book The Little Red Morningson Trotskyist movements.
In total, the structure claims to have 8,000 activists, intensely mobilized in the quest for these sponsorships from elected officials. “We move physically, we will discuss with these elected officials”, insists Nathalie Arthaud. The candidate says she herself met in 2021 a dozen mayors of the Drôme, her department of origin, to raise the counter of signatures. “I even went hiking with two of them”she laughs today.
Marc Henneveux, he did not meet Nathalie Arthaud, neither on the trails of the Drôme, nor elsewhere. The unlabeled mayor of Allemant, a small town in the Aisne, on the other hand received a visit from a militant Lutte Ouvrière from Seine-Saint-Denis last year. “They plow the ground”laughs the city councilor, who brought them his signature for the third time since he became mayor in 2001.
“I’m more on the left, without being affiliated. I’m not a revolutionary communist at all.”
Marc Henneveux, mayor of Allemantat franceinfo
There are many who, like him, sponsor without necessarily feeling close to the Trotskyist movement. “These are non-embedded mayors, generally various leftists, who do not depend on an organized structure. These sponsorships will not come from ‘rebellious’ or communist elected officials, who are reluctant to give their support to Lutte Ouvrière”explains Laurent-David Samama to Marianne. “We are almost only targeting mayors without a label”confirms Nathalie Arthaud to franceinfo.
In order to collect the signatures of elected officials, activists do not really bet on the ideas of their candidate. “The activist who came to see me told me that I was not obliged to share their ideas”says Marc Henneveux. “They don’t agree with all of our politics, but they believe our voice is legitimate and deserves to be heard”, assures Nathalie Arthaud, whose supporters recontact several times those who brought their signatures during previous campaigns. The well-established system has once again borne fruit.