Opinion of French Presidential campaign rules

[Antonio the Sixth]

French presidential campaigns are much more regulated than American ones. Here are the main rules :

- Regarding candidacies : In order to declare candidacy, an individual has to collect the signatures of 500 elected officials (usually mayors). Signatures are to be submitted to the Constitutional Council for verification roughly five weeks before polling day.

- Regarding campaign finance : Expenditures are capped to around 16 million Euro, of which 20% are financed by the State (50% if you receive more than 5% of votes). Individual contributions are capped to 4600 Euro.

- Regarding campaign advertisement : Two weeks before polling day, all official candidates are entitled to the exact same airtime in all radios and TV networks. Campaign ads are extremely regulated. Prior to the two last weeks of campaign, none is authorized. After that, every day at the same hour, every radio or TV network is required to broadcast, successively (and in a random order) the official campaign spot of every candidate. No other spot can be broadcast anywhere. Negative spots are absolutely forbidden (actually, this is not limited to politics : negative publicity is illegal in general).

- Regarding campaign end : Polling day is always on Sunday. Starting on Saturday at 0:00, the official campaign stops. Any campaigning activity is illegal. Candidates and their supporters cannot express themselves in the media or hold meetings, and media cannot talk about them in any way. In short, they can't say anything other than "polling day is tomorrow" or "polling day is today".

- Regarding results : The latest polls close at 20:00. This is the moment when we are supposed to learn about the results. However, the first credible estimates usually come as early as 18:30. It is illegal to publish them until all polls are closed, whether you're a pollster, a media or a private citizen. Of course, it is quite easy to circumvent this in the era of internets and globalization.

So, what do you think about these rules. Necessary ? Archaic ? Protecting democracy ? Stifling free speech ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I for one do quite like the equal airtime provision. Of course there are more serious candidates than others, but I think it's a major democratic guarantee that all candidates are given the same time to express themselves. I'd rather make the requirement for declaring candidacies much harsher (having to collect the signatures of 1% of the electorate would be my proposal) than renouncing to that rule.

[Antonio the Sixth]

- Regarding results : The latest polls close at 20:00. This is the moment when we are supposed to learn about the results. However, the first credible estimates usually come as early as 18:30. It is illegal to publish them until all polls are closed, whether you're a pollster, a media or a private citizen. Of course, it is quite easy to circumvent this in the era of internets and globalization.

Does this ban exit polling results too or is it just for releasing official government results?

It bans exit polling as well (though, technically, exit poll results could be revealed after 20:00, but of course there would be no purpose).

[Antonio the Sixth]

1. (Candidacy): While way too many idiots end up running, restricting candidacies is not very democratic. People who want to run for President should either get endorsements from 1% of registered voters or pay a fairly large deposit (and get their deposit back if they break 5% or something).

I actually think 1% of registered voters would be a far harsher requirement than the current system. It's pretty easy to find 500 trolls/tools/idiots among majors, far less to actually convince 450,000 people that your candidacy is somehow useful to them.

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I'm not entirely sure, but I think any official campaigning activity ends, including grassroots party militancy.

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I totally agree. Suspence is fun. Of course, when the possibility exists, temptation is strong. Fortunately, reagarding First round, I'll be on the road to Sciences Po (in order to attend the election night there) so no risk of spoiler.