Experts from the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding (CNCCFP) have delivered their verdict. After having sent questionnaires to the teams of presidential candidates in 2022, requesting sworn statements and supporting documents, the independent authority approved the accounts of the twelve contenders for the Elysee Palace, this Friday, January 27. Among them, only Marine Le Pen is contesting before the Constitutional Council the invalidation of more than 300,000 euros of her campaign expenses, linked to the “flocking and unflocking” of twelve coaches rented for the occasion.
The leader of the RN is not the only one to have suffered “reforms” – the alterations made to the expenses or revenues declared by the candidates, in application of the electoral code. The far-right candidate, Éric Zemmour, for example, received the largest fixed penalty, 200,000 euros. The Commission considered that thanks to his program “Face à l’info” on CNews, he had benefited, when he had not yet officially declared himself, from “a promotion of his personality”. She also criticized him for not having paid royalties, estimated at 16,000 euros, when he had used, without authorization, images in his application video.
Macron, top spender candidate
For his part, Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw his “official campaign transport costs overseas” reduced by 12,178 euros by the CNCCFP. The latter also cut 15,000 euros from the reimbursement of its campaign expenses, believing that “the large number” of stickers printed on occasion, 1.2 million, was not justified.
The winner of the election, Emmanuel Macron, was the candidate with the highest spending, with 16.69 million euros declared – which still does not reach the ceiling of 22.509 million euros set for presidential finalists. The CNCCFP cut 100,000 euros from the reimbursement of costs related to the publication of its presidential candidacy on the Twitter and Facebook accounts of the Élysée, then respectively followed by “7.9 million and 4.3 million subscribers “. According to the organization, “he thus benefited from a large audience constituted thanks to public means”, an “indirect advantage” and “prohibited”. The CNCCFP also decided to exclude some 30,000 euros paid to a photographer, a bonus which must be paid by the presidential party, according to the Commission.
A penalty of 15,000 euros for Pécresse
The Commission imposed a penalty of 15,000 euros on Valérie Pécresse, the LR candidate, who did not reach the threshold of 5% of the votes cast and who appealed for donations to reimburse her campaign expenses. The organization noted in particular that “eleven room rental expenses […] were not included in the campaign account”.
The CNCCFP also focused on the role of consulting firms, its campaign manager having been a consultant for one of them. “The Commission notes that as it stands, it has no element likely to call into question the content and scope” of the declarations of the candidate and the campaign manager”.