Solene Leroux
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12:05 p.m., January 16, 2022
Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe 1/CNews/Les Échos, the president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) David Lisnard affirmed that the sponsorship rule for the presidential election “is no longer appropriate” . It was also recalled that the AMF is not there to serve the interests of a particular candidate.
Less than a hundred days before the presidential election, the subject of sponsorships is at the heart of the debates. Éric Zemmour, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen have expressed their difficulties, sometimes their deep concerns, about collecting the 500 signatures of mayors. Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe 1/CNews/The echoes, David Lisnard, President of the Association of Mayors of France and Mayor of Cannes said “personally that this rule is no longer appropriate”. “My responsibility is not to seek sponsorship for candidates”, but “as a citizen, I alert”.
Regarding the rule of 500 signatures, he “proposed several solutions” such as “double sponsorship”, already “proposed by Jacques Pélissard at the time” or the fact of “mixing with citizen sponsorship”. But David Lisnard reminds us: “The rules are not the responsibility of mayors or the AMF, they are the responsibility of the executive and legislative powers.” According to him, “the candidates do not discover the rules today” and that none of them apart from Jean-Luc Mélenchon has ensured that the law changes.
Not the role of the AMF to find sponsorship
The president of the Association of Mayors of France wants all the candidates to find sponsorship so that “civil discord can be expressed electorally”. However, according to him, “it would be dishonest to say that the Association of Mayors of France will find sponsorship: it is not there to serve the interests” of one candidate rather than another.