Let’s imagine that you want to stand in the presidential election… Is that possible? On paper, it’s pretty simple! To be a candidate, it is enough to be a French citizen over 18 years old, registered on an electoral list, who is not placed under guardianship or curatorship, who has a campaign bank account, which has not been deprived of its civic rights concerning eligibility and which obtained 500 sponsorships from parliamentarians or local elected officials.
The real question is how to collect votes then, how to obtain popular support, how to ensure that a voter slips your name into the ballot box to open the doors of the Élysée to you? If there was a miracle recipe, it would be known.
In the United States, to have a chance of reaching the White House, all you have to do is emerge victorious from the primaries and caucuses organized by the Democrats and Republicans.
But why are the primaries not a tradition in France, why aren’t they popular, why aren’t they a guarantee of electoral success? And quite simply: are primaries losing machines?
This is what we are going to see in this new episode of Polcast, the political podcast of “Sud Ouest” hosted by Maud Rieu, journalist and web editor, with Jefferson Desport, political journalist and Bruno Dive, editorial writer.