The worst defeat in the history of the right, during a presidential election under the Fifth Republic, will it weigh down its finances? In an interview granted Tuesday, April 12 to Sunday newspaper (JDD), the treasurer of the Les Républicains (LR) party, Daniel Fasquelle, talks about the financial difficulties encountered by the party and its candidate Valérie Pécresse, after the first round of the presidential election, where the latter won less than 5% of the votes (4.78%), thus seeing himself deprived of a considerable reimbursement of his campaign expenses.
And “the finances of the party are not threatened”said the treasurer, despite campaign expenses having reached a total of 15 million euros, including 8 million financed by LR, the party did not “more money to help [ses] candidates for the legislative elections. In fact, LR gnawed on the legislative reserves to finance the campaign of Mme Pécresse.
“We will do it after the second round of the presidential election”
To find the money that will be used to finance the campaign of its candidates for the legislative elections of June 12 and 19, LR therefore intends to rely on “three levers” : “a savings plan on [son] budget 2022 », draw on the resources of its local federations and launch, “in the name of the party, a call for donations”. “We will do this after the second round of the presidential election because today the priority is to relay the appeal for donations launched Monday by Valérie Pécresse”, explains Mr. Fasquelle.
Personally indebted “up to 5 million euros”, the candidate launched a public appeal for donations on Monday, in order to complete the financing of her campaign. The treasurer of LR returns to this loan from Valérie Pécresse on his behalf, usual during previous campaigns: “For any campaign, candidates borrow on a personal basis and are then reimbursed according to their score. François Fillon had done so up to 4 million euros for the 2017 presidential election, François-Xavier Bellamy up to 2 million euros for the 2019 Europeans.
“For Valérie Pécresse, we counted, at the start of the campaign, on a budget of 15 million euros. We couldn’t imagine then that we would make less than 5%. I released 8 million euros, including 3 million initially planned to help legislative candidates. But I couldn’t do more.” he continues.