The concept? A structure that would allow political parties to finance themselves from “public organizations” and not just private ones. The project was already abandoned for the first time because it was too cumbersome.
François Bayrou has a lot of ideas. The Prime Minister, during his general policy speech, relaunched on Tuesday January 14 the idea of creating a “bank of democracy” so that political parties can finance themselves from“public bodies” and not just private. “RELAUNCH”because this project actually dates from 2017, when the president of MoDem was Minister of Justice, a position he held for around thirty days.
As recalled Franceinfothis option which seems to be close to the mayor of Pau's heart was ultimately ruled out. “July 17 (2018, Editor’s note)Nicole Belloubet, who became Minister of Justice, announced the abandonment of the idea of this banking structure. She had, before the deputies, put forward reasons linked to the cumbersome structure to be put in place or to the requirement for state neutralityexplained our colleagues in an article from March 2018. Above all, she indicated that she relied on a report from the General Inspectorate of Administration and the General Inspectorate of Finance, which highlighted the fact that if the parties cannot access credit, it is not not so much for lack of bank offers as for questions of information or deadlines, the responsibility of the credit mediator.”
Money must not rule consciences and money must not take precedence over the free will of citizens
This Tuesday, François Bayrou said he hoped that the parties “can finance themselves without needing to use circumvention strategies” via “the creation of a bank of democracy so that the financing of political parties and campaigns no longer depends on the choice of private banks, but can possibly and in recourse, be the work of public bodies placed under the control of Parliament”. “Money must not rule consciences and money must not take precedence over the free will of citizens”he argued in his general policy statement.
An idea supported by the RN
“The goal (from the Bank of Democracy, Editor’s note)is to offer face-to-face candidates loans from a benevolent public company to organize their campaign, and which offers a lower interest rate than a private bank.summarized François Levêque, professor of economics at Mines-ParisTech, in an article in 20 Minutes published in April 2022.
The Parisian specifies that this idea is supported in particular by the National Rally, “who regularly struggles to find funding”.
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