“World” editorial. It is never good in a democracy that a hint of tampering can surround the interpretation of a poll. When this suspicion is anchored in a breeding ground where political speech is discredited and where conspiracy theories flourish, the danger is even greater. For several weeks, the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, has been the subject of serious accusations: he is suspected of wanting to influence the interpretation of the municipal elections of March, which do not promise to be a success for the presidential party.
The government is indeed struggling on the pension reform, and the hopes of conquest Parisian stumble on the rivalry between Benjamin Griveaux and Cédric Villani. In this difficult context, the Minister of the Interior sent prefects a circular which appeared very technical and which, barely deciphered by specialists, sparked lightning strikes. The opposition cried out for manipulation, a group of forty-four political scientists published on Saturday January 25 in The world a forum asking the Minister to revise his circular.
The signatories protest against the fact that political nuance, that is to say the attribution of a political nuance by the prefects, risks disappearing in the communes of less than 9,000 inhabitants. “53% of the electorate would be deprived of crucial information on the political identity of their candidates, and 97% of the municipalities would be governed from March by mayors without partisan affiliation”, do they worry, denouncing “A serious attack on a fundamental principle of our municipal democracy, namely the full knowledge of the political affiliations of the candidates running”.
Politically unreadable result
Admittedly, the threshold from which prefects must obligatorily nuance candidates has varied over time. In 2008, it was set at 3,500 inhabitants. In 2014, it fell to 1,000, angering many elected officials. Free to declare themselves or not under a political label, the mayors of small towns often protested the nuance attributed to them by the prefect, deeming it false, or approximate.
The controversy is in fact about the high bar chosen by Christophe Castaner. From a technical point of view, it corresponds to the threshold above which a candidate must declare a financial agent but, for political scientists, it has the effect of retaining nuance only in 3% of municipalities, those, they note. , or “The Republic on the march obtained its best scores in previous elections”.
The interior minister heightened the suspicion of wanting to embellish the results of the next election by introducing, through the circular, a new shade LDVC (list various center). In municipalities with more than 9,000 inhabitants, it will be allocated to lists which not only have obtained the nomination of the presidential majority, but also to those which they have simply supported. In other words, a mayor LR or PS supported but not invested by LRM, the MoDem or the UDI may be counted there, at the risk of rendering the result politically illegible in some test municipalities.
Urgently seized by the opposition, the Council of State will say, Friday, January 31, whether the Castaner directive is or not legal. A few days ago, the highest administrative court gave a very critical opinion on the pension reform. Given the suspicion, the government can hardly afford the luxury of a second snub.
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