At the same (small) level as Arnaud Montebourg in opinion polls, the candidate for animal welfare has so far grabbed “more than half” of the 500 necessary sponsorships.
For the upcoming elections, a new party is gradually slipping into the polls. This is the animalist party, a movement created five years ago to defend the animal cause and which claims for the first time at the Elysee. A sign that her candidate, Hélène Thouy, is beginning to find a place for herself in the political and media landscape, her name is included this Wednesday in an Ifop-Fiducial poll, which hears “Monitor in real time the voting intentions of the French”, with daily surveys for Paris-Match, LCI and Sud-Radio.
The first batch of results gives 0.5% of the vote intentions to Bordeaux lawyer Hélène Thouy for the first round. A mini-score, also obtained by Arnaud Montebourg, the candidate of the Remontada, and Nathalie Arthaud, of Lutte Ouvrière. The Ifop-Fiducial poll, which selected a list of 14 main candidates, will follow the evolution of opinions day by day until the presidential election.
“Awareness deficit”
In November, a first survey conducted by Ifop and ordered by the Animalist Party gave more encouraging figures. The candidate was credited with 2% of the voting intentions. A score close to that achieved by the party in the 2019 European elections, namely an unexpected 2.2% of the vote. In this batch, the voting intentions for Hélène Thouy were close to those of the communist Fabien Roussel (2.5%), and were ahead of Arnaud Montebourg (1%) as well as Philippe Poutou of the NPA, Nathalie Arthaud, Jean Lassalle, who pointed to 0.5%.
How to explain the difference in figures between the two opinion polls? There’s the margin of error, especially cruel when it comes to such tiny scores. On the side of the Animalist Party, we think that a small subtlety may have played a role: in November the pollsters specified that Hélène Thouy was the “candidate of the animalist party”, while in the questionnaire for this month of January, only her name appeared. . “We are well aware that it has for the moment a deficit of notoriety”, and that voters have not yet identified it well, comments within the party.
After the legislative, European and municipal elections, Hélène Thouy aims to collect 4 to 5% of the votes in the presidential election. But before getting there, in order to be able to present himself, he will need to collect the 500 signatures of elected officials. The Animalist Party mainly relies on unlicensed mayors in rural areas. Very discreet about the numbers so far, his campaign team now announces that “more than half” precious sesames has so far been scooped up. The small party maintains the hope of completing its collection by early March, the deadline for submitting sponsorships.