When they learned of the dissolution of the National Assembly and the dates of the polls, set for June 30 and July 7, the printers had an almost unanimous reaction: how, in such a short time, to deliver on time in the 577 constituencies all the electoral propaganda of the candidates constituted by the professions of faith and the ballot papers? “The time required between the end of the submission of applications [dimanche 16 juin] and delivery of printed electoral materials [mardi 18 juin, à 18 heures] appears too short »immediately warned the National Union of Printing and Communication Industries (Uniic).
Due to an unprecedented situation, which “destabilizes printers”the employers’ union demands “extra time” in government. “We have asked for twenty-four more hours and we are talking with the elections office of the Ministry of the Interior, explains Pascal Bovero, general delegate of Uniic. In its haste, the government has forgotten that we are an industrial sector. There are no longer any paper producers in France, and we have to source our supplies from the Scandinavian countries, Portugal, Spain, and a little from Germany. I am facing a reaction from certain members. And I do everything to collect and distribute the stocks of sleepers. »
From Sunday evening June 9, after Emmanuel Macron’s announcement, the phone rang at printers. SMEs are mobilizing. In Issoudun (Indre), the director of Centr’Imprim does everything to meet deadlines, even if “it’s extremely difficult”. Never seen before, even during the second round, assures Olivier Filloux. “I am waiting for the prefecture to validate the candidates’ ballots before printing”he explained, Friday June 14 in the morning, hoping that the elections commission would give him the green light on Friday, and not Monday morning.
Bulletins and professions of faith must be delivered on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the latest, this leaves less than a day to print, trim and package the bulletins (in packs of 1,000), before sending them to a carrier based in the north from Eure-et-Loir, a four-hour drive from Issoudin. He fears that some districts will not have their materials on time.
Higher costs
Teams will be mobilized over the weekend, when the prefectures have validated the candidates’ forms. A headache for the few companies that also print newspapers. Like that of Léonce-Antoine Deprez, in Arras, who prints the magazine Society : he warned, Thursday June 13, in The Parisian, that he could not deliver to this customer twenty-four hours late. But many companies say they are capable of adapting, because it is in their “DNA” to respond very quickly to certain orders – including political ones.
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