This is an unprecedented situation. Fifteen days before the end of the mandates, three of the five candidates most likely to reach the second round of the French presidential election in April 2022 had still not reached their 500 sponsorships. What is the history of this procedure born with the Fifth Republic?
The “presentation of candidates for the presidential election”, commonly known as “sponsorship”, dates back to the first election of the Vand Republic in October 1958. For the last time, the President of the Republic was not elected there by direct universal suffrage, but by a college of 80,000 electors, at least 50 of whom must provide their signatures to the candidates so that they these are recognized by the Constitutional Council.
“These 50 signatures are so rather symbolic, especially since there are only 3 candidates »Explain Clementine Belle Grenier, PhD student at IRISSO, the Paris Dauphine Institute for Social Science Research. The October 1962 referendum, which established the election of the President of the Republic by the citizens themselves, also led to the doubling of the number of necessary sponsorships, which was therefore increased to 100.
Since 1976, 500 signatures are needed
” It is then a question of countering the strength of the parties, she continues, and to recognize the value of the candidates chosen. » This procedure incidentally contributes to what is quickly defined as “the personalization of power” inherent in the Vand Republic, and the quest for the providential man or woman.
In the 1965 election and then in that of 1969, the candidates present in the first round doubled (6, then 7), to reach 12 in 1974. The number has since fluctuated between 9 and 16, the record having been reached in 2002 , where the dispersion of votes on the left partly contributed to the access of far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen to the second round and the elimination of socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.
This stabilization is the product of a modification in 1976 of the constitutional law of November 1962 which increases the necessary number of sponsorships to 500, which makes the task much more difficult. “The breeding ground is not infinite”, recalls Gilles Richard, professor emeritus of political history, who recently co-edited an issue of the journal History @ Politics dedicated to the “small candidates” of the presidential election.
In 2017, 42,000 mandates were likely to give their sponsorship, mayors in more than three-quarters of cases, despite the reduction in the number of municipalities. Moreover, the challenge of the candidate for the candidacy is not reduced to obtaining the necessary number of signatures. The latter must meet the requirements of a “national representativeness clause” and therefore come from at least 30 different overseas departments or communities, without any exceeding one tenth of the total necessary, in other words 50.
The dignity of sponsorship
Each elected official can sponsor only one candidate, and his choice is irrevocable, even if the candidate on whom he has focused renounces to present himself. Sponsorship is not compulsory and in practice this right is exercised by a minority. In 2012 and 2017, just over a third of elected officials granted their sponsorship.
Buying a sponsorship is obviously prohibited, as is choosing a candidate by drawing lots. ” Ihe Constitutional Council places great emphasis on the dignity of sponsorship, explains Clémentine Belle Grenier. But IHe never said you couldn’t sponsor someone whose ideas you don’t share. » It is therefore possible to grant sponsorship to an opposing candidate in the name of his supposed democratic representativeness or to defend the diversity of political sensitivities present.
This is the meaning of the reserve of sponsorships within the elected representatives of the Modem (Democratic Movement) constituted for these elections by the president of this party François Bayrou. According to his own words, it is sufficient for candidates exceeding 10% of voting intentions in the polls and not yet having the necessary number of signatures to enter the first round. In fact, only the two far-right candidates could still need it. It remains that legitimization by polls, which are not an official tool, can also raise questions.
“The fact that the parties give instructions to give their sponsorship is not a novelty”, recalls Gilles Richard, evoking in particular the gesture of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing towards the ecologist Brice Lalonde in 1981. Clémentine Belle Grenier recalls that Nicolas Sarkozy had acted in the same way for Philippe Poutou in 2012.
Difficulties turned into a political tool
In these last two cases, the dispersion of votes on the left served the main candidate on the right, while giving him the image of a “great prince”. ” Today even more than parties, some depend on their adversariescomments Clémentine Belle Grenier. Sponsorship has become one more strategic tool, including for those who are not going to get the sufficient number. »
Ten days before the close of filings, Marine Le Pen, who has not yet reached 400 signatures, announced that she was suspending her field campaign. What she defines as a “major democratic scandal” feeds her image as an anti-system candidate, undermined by new major competition on the far right.
In fact, puts Clémentine Belle Grenier into perspective, “We have never seen someone eliminated with 450 signatures. A week before there is always a last breath. » Be that as it may, Gilles Richard would see a major political risk in the elimination of candidates with a high percentage of voting intentions: ” Already that Emmanuel Macron does not have considerable democratic legitimacy, it would be absolutely catastrophicthan. This would pave the way for another Yellow Vest movement. »
“There is a temptation to establish a bipartisan systemhe continues, but that is not possible. The fewer the small candidates there will be, the more abstentions there will be, ” sums up this specialist of the right, who considers that there are 8 great historical families of the right in France – and not 3 as the French historian René Rémond saw it – a number which rises to 14 for the right and the left confused.
Elected officials under pressure
It remains to be understood why the sponsorship procedure, which initially aimed to rule out “fanciful applications”, can create difficulties for a few favorites and not represent a major obstacle for candidates much lower in the polls, such as the ecologist Yannick Jadot or even more strikingly the candidate of Lutte Ouvrière Nathalie Arthaud.
Some candidates are supported by “rhighly structured, highly organized partisan networks”, explains Clémentine Belle Grenier. Among the parties stemming from Trotskyism, this is the case of Lutte Ouvrière or, in previous elections, of the Workers’ Party, which began to canvass very far upstream. The NPA – party heir to the LCR – on the other hand benefits from a less structured militant network. Ten days before the deadline, Philippe Poutou has not collected half of the necessary signatures.
For Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who obtained the necessary number of sponsorships on February 24, Clémentine Belle Grenier like Gilles Richard both point to the defection of elected Communists, whose contribution had been essential in 2012 and 2017. The second also denounces the deleterious effects of the organic law of April 2016 of “modernization of various rules applicable to the presidential election. » « Francis Hollande once again betrayed the ideals of the left” he judges.
Since that date, the list of sponsors has been published in full in the official journal – previously this was only the case for the 500 drawn by lot. Elected officials must also send their sponsorship directly to the Constitutional Council, which are published twice a week as they are received and validated. ” Of course no one will tell you that he was pressuredcomments Gilles Richard, but these pressures exist. »
A procedure favorable to party candidacies
He pursues : ” The mayors who form the largest contingent are less and less independent. They depend more and more on the communities of communes and metropolises, which provide them with the largest subsidies since Emmanuel Macron purposely abolished income from housing taxes. It’s the evolution of the Republic that abandoned his principles. »
He cites in support the fundamental work of Maurice Agulhon, The Republic in the village (1970), who showed very well how, in the nineteenthand century, the Republican Party built its legitimacy and democratic strength on local elected officials. However, as Clémentine Belle Grenier reminds us, ” IThe fact of making public obliges elected officials to assume their choice”.
Some are indeed more difficult to display than others, and one of the presidential candidates, the socialist Anne Hidalgo, was indignant that one could “in the name of democracy, while he makes remarks contrary to democracy, coming to look for formulas to give sponsorships [à Eric Zemmour] “.
In general, she judged, “if we are not able to convince 500 mayors out of 42 000 elected officials who can sponsor, there is a small problem”, an analysis shared by Communist Party candidate Fabien Roussel. Both have in common, despite their low score in the polls, to have strong partisan structures.
A rogue system?
This is not the case for the most prominent candidates, with the exception of Valérie Pécresse, supported by the Republicans, who has by far the highest number of sponsorships. What is happening today is “the result of the crisis of the partisan system” Judge Gilles Richard.“The sponsorship system has been misguided by the 2016 law and the current political situation. »
There remains the case of the favorite of this election, outgoing President Emmanuel Macron. The time when it suffered from the lack of local roots and the absence of a real partisan structure seems partly outdated or over. ” For himconcludes Clémentine Belle Grenier, sponsorship is a good political tool. He does not need to express his will verbally, to say that he is an official candidate, since he already has his signatures. He’s there. It’s enough. »
“There is something almost plebiscitary”, she remarks. “It’s quite amazingadds Gilles Richard. He does everything to step over the electoral campaign. » That this procedure intrinsically linked to the Vand Republic can allow a political figure to postpone indefinitely the announcement of his official candidacy indeed raises questions.
The commission for the renovation and ethics of public life, nicknamed the “Jospin commission”, had proposed in 2012, as is done in other European countries, to replace sponsorship of elected officials with sponsorship of citizens. Since then, several political forces have called for a profound change or modification of the Constitution, denouncing what is often described as a presidential regime, of which the presentation of candidates is one of its trademarks.
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