Presidential election 2022: LRM in search of 5 million euros for Macron’s campaign – archyde

The blue and white letters stand out against a red background, next to the silhouette of Emmanuel Macron: “Five more years with your donations. “ In recent weeks, La République en Marche (LRM) has published a leaflet intended for its patrons in view of the presidential election of 2022. “You were already 100,000 donors in 2017, for 2022, we are counting on you! “, is it written on the document.

It does not matter that the head of state has not yet declared himself a candidate for re-election. A campaign cannot be improvised. And even less a fundraiser.

The presidential party is looking for 5 million euros to supplement its campaign budget, out of the 22.5 million spending authorized by the state for a candidate qualified in the second round. About 10 million euros will be financed by bank loan, and another 7 million from LRM’s own funds, which benefits, like all political parties, from public funding indexed to its results in the last legislative elections. It is therefore missing 5 million euros. “We have never charged memberships, fundraising is necessary”, explains the deputy of Val-de-Marne Laurent Saint-Martin, treasurer of LRM.

The stake is more political than it seems. Both in terms of display – garnering a large number of donations, including symbolic ones, makes it possible to display a dynamic in favor of the candidate – as in the competition to hook the big donors, these millionaires or billionaires with generous hands. In this area, the “marchers” mainly race with the Republicans (LR) party.

Lower ambitions

In 2016, Nicolas Sarkozy, then a candidate for the right-wing primary, was so sorry in front of his relatives that his friend the luxury billionaire Bernard Arnault refused to put his hand in the wallet to support him. The CEO of LVMH only had eyes, he believed at the time, for Emmanuel Macron.

The former Minister of the Economy, launched to conquer power without a real political party, had collected 14 million euros in donations to finance his campaign. A sum largely obtained from wealthy patrons, which can give up to 7,500 euros, the maximum ceiling authorized by law for donations to political parties (this ceiling is 4,600 euros for donations to the funding association campaign of a candidate). Mr. Macron had multiplied, with events organized with the French communities of London, New York or Beirut. According to a survey by World, published in 2019, more than 7 million euros had been collected through only 1,100 donations.

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