The presidential election is not like the French football cup, the “little thumbs” never go very far. And sometimes it’s not for lack of ideas, but for lack of funding. So be careful, this election is not only a question of money, but it is also a question of money! A little reminder of the rules.
For candidates who do not cross the 5% vote mark in the 1st round, 800,000 euros of expenses will be reimbursed. To give you an idea, Éric Zemmour’s big meeting in Villepinte in December alone, cost around 600,000 euros. If you exceed 5% on the other hand, there the reimbursement goes up to 8 million euros for the 1st round. But if you are reimbursed, it’s good that you have to advance the costs, so how does it happen?
La République En Marche, whose coffers are full, like those of the PS or the UMP in the past, had no trouble securing a €10m loan for this campaign. Others have to bow down to banking establishments. RTL revealed to you that Marine Le Pen had to go as far as Hungary to get a loan after 50 refusals. The Greens got some one of 8 million after more than a year of negotiations.
All of this gives banks and finance far too much power over our democratic life.
It’s not just banks to finance a campaign
We come back to our fundraising, Éric Zemmour charges several thousand euros for the entrance ticket to be able to dine at his table. Emmanuel Macron sends his ministers to dinners with business leaders where the bank card terminal is taken out at the end of the meal. Consider that in 2017, a small group of around 1,000 donors, only 1,000 people were enough to raise nearly 7 million euros for the current head of state’s campaign.
The amount of donations is capped by law, however, all that is not very healthy either, and amounts to leaving part of the keys to the election to a handful of big donors. So we come out of the boxes the idea of a democracy bankled by François Bayrou, a public bank whose role would be to support parties in campaign financing.
Idea buried during the quinquennium. Or let’s be crazy, let’s go further, and imagine a presidential election where all the candidates who would have obtained their sponsorships, would benefit to the nearest euro, the same financial means to campaignso that it is not the size of the posters or the meetings that counts, but the size of the ideas.
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