Presidential 2022: where are the candidates in their search for sponsorship?

The start of the official collection of signatures will start on January 30th. If the candidates have been working for several months to collect promises of sponsorship, these are not yet official. They will have until March 4 at 6 p.m. to submit 500 sponsorships of elected officials from at least 30 different overseas departments or communities.

After analysis and validation of these by the Constitutional Council, the official list of candidates for the publication election will then be published on March 11. Who is serene so far? Who will have difficulty? Here is the inventory of fixtures this Friday, January 7.

The candidates of the government parties, installed for many years in the political landscape and used to having elected representatives, never have any difficulty in obtaining their sponsorship. If Valérie Pécresse has never communicated the exact number of signatures she had, it is certain that the president of the Ile-de-France region has exceeded the necessary quota. As part of the LR congress, which required having collected at least 250, she was the first to submit them. Her entourage had specified that she had some “much more than what was required” and that the candidate “continued[ait] receive it every day “.

The 500 signatures are not a difficulty either for the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo. The candidate said she reached this figure at the end of November 2021, and her team said they were targeting “600 to 700 sponsorship pledges by January”. One way to ensure his rear in case of withdrawal, and to make a show of force.

This Friday, January 7, the newspaper The Parisian revealed that environmentalist Yannick Jadot also had his sponsorships. Information confirmed to LCI by his entourage. If the 500 goal is met, he wants to collect 100 more. A good harvest allowed by the good results of environmentalists in the last elections, especially municipal and regional, allowing them to increase the number of their elected officials.

Of course, Emmanuel Macron is not yet a candidate, but if he was, he should have no difficulty in gleaning his 500 signatures. It is possible to consider that this is already the case.

This Friday, January 7, the campaign director of Jean-Luc Mélenchon told LCI that the rebellious had collected 380 signatures. “We have made good progress, but there is still a long way to go and the deadlines are a little short because of the dates of the presidential election (April 10 and 24, editor’s note). The task is not easy”, recognizes Manuel Bompard, who does not say he is worried. To reach its objective of 600 sponsorships, La France insoumise will step up the pace in January, and send a new letter to the mayors, reminding them that sponsorship is not worth support.

Saturday January 8, Eric Zemmour’s entourage told LCI that he could count on 336 sponsorship promises. Two days earlier, the ex-polemicist had been in possession of a few “300 promises” of sponsorships at this stage. “It is at the same time a lot because we have no elected officials, but at the same time it is nothing since 500 are needed and everyone tells us that we need 600, even 700 (promises) because people retract at the last moment “, he confessed.

Marine Le Pen is not there either. If his entourage has not given recent figures, on December 27 on RMC party spokesman Laurent Jacobelli declared: “It is difficult for the candidates to have their 500 signatures. It is moving forward, but it is extremely complicated.” Like many candidates in difficulty, the RN demands the anonymity of sponsorships, their publication dissuading many elected officials.

On December 21, a former member of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan’s campaign team told LCI that the latter had between 380 and 450 sponsorships. The presence of Eric Zemmour among the candidates makes the task more complicated for him than in 2017.

“We are close to 500 sponsorships”, indicated the Communist Fabien Roussel on December 15 on Twitter. “But I want to go beyond that, by rallying widely around my candidacy.”

Among the small candidates – François Asselineau, Nathalie Arthaud, Philippe Poutou, Jean Lassalle – none has yet received all his sponsorships. But all were present in the first round in 2017 and had managed to get their signatures.