“It’s really the last carat”: the political parties await the payment of the public endowment

2023-06-22 14:38:56

Each vote obtained in the legislative elections of 2022 is 1.64 euros per year that falls into the coffers of the parties. Depending also on their number of deputies, the political parties obtain from the State each year a public grant to ensure their proper functioning. But in 2023, the subsidies are slow to be paid because of numerous appeals on the legislative elections to the Constitutional Council, which prevent determining the precise allocation to the nearest cent.

“All the appeals have not been successful, so we cannot freeze the distribution of the endowments”, explains the treasurer of the LR, Daniel Fasquelle. “We must be paid a first advance in July, up to 50% of the planned annual allocation,” he explains. Outside an election year, the first payment is made in February. This delay worries many parties, unable to incur heavy expenses. At LR, money had been set aside in anticipation of this situation. And a savings plan has already been launched pending the slightly more than 10 million euros that the State must pay them.

“Great national loan” at the RN

It is at the National Rally that the situation is the most complex. From the beginning of the year, Jordan Bardella had written a letter to Beauvau and Matignon? with a copy to all party leaders? to request an advance. In the RN, the delay in the payment of the endowment is all the more cruel as it jumps this year against the backdrop of exceptional results in the legislative elections and goes from 5.2 million euros annually to 10.2 million.

To cover the cash needs of 2.5 million euros until the payment of the first installment, the party launched at the beginning of the year a “big national loan” from its supporters. Loan interest rate: a costly 5% for party finances. “We have thus covered the needs”, is satisfied with the treasurer of the RN, Kévin Pfeffer, who postpones certain expenses such as the hiring of employees in the communication department or organizes events of a smaller size than desired.

Will the payment of the second installment in the fall make it possible to change the situation? Not really because Kevin Pfeffer’s priority objective is to get rid of the famous Russian loan. He would like to repay all at once the 6.5 million euros in debt to the creditor, the Russian aeronautical company Aviazapchast by the end of the year. “We were supposed to finish repaying in 2028 but I am doing everything to finish it this year because it is a political argument used against us by our opponents”, he explains.

Renaissance is living on its 2017 war chest

On the left too, we are impatiently awaiting the first installment. “It’s really the last carat, we don’t have a problem for the moment but it shouldn’t be postponed once again”, alarmed the co-treasurer of EELV, Nour Durand-Raucher. And to target a situation creating “inequality for small parties” like his, less rich and therefore prevented in their desire to launch large-scale actions.

At LFI, we did not wait for state money to organize major demonstrations. But this has a cost. Result: the movement of Jean-Luc Mélenchon turned to his bank to claim overdraft authorizations or bridging loans. Manuel Bompard, boss of La France insoumise, estimates the overdraft at 2 million euros. As at the PS, where, as a “security measure”, the treasurer Fatima Yadani had requested an overdraft authorization. She expects 4 million from the state. “The council deals with around 20 appeals a week, that’s a lot. In reality, the ministry did not put the means to deal with the influx, “said the socialist.

The PCF, like the presidential party, Renaissance, are less inconvenienced. The first can count on a large number of members and high contributions. The second accumulated a war chest in 2017 allowing him to see far.