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2022 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

5 things to know about French presidential campaign financing

Candidates in France's upcoming presidential election will need to respect strict campaign finance rules or risk legal repercussions.

Published: 10 February 2022 16:47 CET
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under house arrest after breaking campaign finance rules.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under house arrest after breaking campaign finance rules. So what limitations to presidential candidates have to respect? (Photo by Bertrand GUAY / AFP)

Presidential campaigns in France are subject to strict financing rules. Here’s what you need to know:

Spending is capped 

The amount of money that candidates can spend during a presidential election is limited at €16.85 million for those competing in the first round. The two top-polling candidates from the first round go through to a second round and they’re allowed to spend an extra €5.66 million, taking their total campaign spend up to €22.51 million. 

The French spending limit is far below that applied at publicly funded candidates last US presidential election, which was set at €103.7 million. In 2020 though, Donald Trump and Joe Biden obtained an estimated total of $6.6bn in private donations. US candidates which rely on private sources of finance do not face any limits on how much they can spend. 

The government pays for some campaign costs

Presidential candidates in the first round who win more than 5 percent of the vote can receive up to around €8 million from the government to reimburse their campaign costs. Those who win less than 5 percent only get up to €800,423 reimbursed by the state. 

All candidates who meet the conditions to run in the first round, regardless of their vote share, receive €200,000 of public money to campaign. 

Candidates running second round campaigns can have up to €10.7 million reimbursed by the state. 

The biggest spenders usually win 

Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen in the second round of the 2017 election, after outspending her by more than €4 million.

Other examples from recent history also suggest that spending big pays off – Nicolas Sarkozy won the 2007 presidential election after outspending his rivals and Chirac won the 1995 and 2002 elections as the biggest spender. 

One recent exception is the 2012 election in which Nicolas Sarkozy lost to François Hollande in the second round despite spending more money. That year, Sarkozy didn’t receive any reimbursement from the state to cover campaign costs after breaching the spending limit. He was officially left with close to €23 million to cover himself. 

However, this isn’t always the case. In 2012 Nicolas Sarkozy lost to François Hollande despite spending more money. 

Private financing is strictly regulated

Individuals cannot loan money to presidential candidates, but can make donations of up to €4,600. Cash payments, as opposed to bank transfers and cheques, are limited to €150. Candidates are required to keep detailed records of who pays them money. 

Businesses and organisations (apart from political parties) cannot make donations to a presidential candidate. 

A law passed after the 2017 election decreed that candidates could no longer loan money from financial organisations based outside of the European Economic Community.

This means that Marine Le Pen’s loan of more than €10 million from a bank in Hungary in January was perfectly legal but Russian loans – which she used to finance her 2017 presidential bid – are no longer permitted.

Those who break the rules face heavy (albeit often delayed) penalties 

The Commission nationale des comptes de campagne et des financements politiques monitors campaign accounts and political financing of candidates in French elections. Set featured image

If it finds irregularities, it can ask judicial authorities to launch an investigation. 

Last year a court sentenced Sarkozy to one year in prison (which is being served under house arrest), for spending close to double the legal limit during his failed attempt to win re-election in 2012. 

READ MORE Ex French president Sarkozy given one-year sentence for illegal campaign financing

The case was known as the Bygmalion affair, after the name of the public relations firm hired by Sarkozy to orchestrate a blitz of lavish US-style election rallies. Executives of the firm admitted to using a system of fake invoices to mask the real cost of the events.

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FRENCH CITIZENSHIP

French citizenship: What exactly is France’s ‘droit du sol’?

The phrase 'droit du sol' has been in the French news recently, but the right to citizenship to people born in France comes with quite a few strings attached and is different to how some might understand 'birthright citizenship'.

Published: 13 February 2024 12:10 CET
French citizenship: What exactly is France's 'droit du sol'?

The principle of droit du sol is making headlines in France at the moment due to a controversial idea from France’s interior minister (more on that below).

The phrase itself is often translated as ‘birthright citizenship’ and there’s an assumption that this is automatically applied to any child born on French soil.

In reality, it functions very differently in France than in other nations, such as the United States, which confer nationality at birth.

Those born in France to at least one French parent can be French citizens from birth, as can children born outside France to at least one French parent – this is droit du sang (blood right).

Droit du sol (literally translated as ‘soil right’) enables children born in France to foreign parents to acquire French nationality – albeit later in life and with a number of strings attached.

Children covered by droit du sol can obtain French nationality either between the ages of 13-15 or when they turn 18, but they are not born with it.

READ MORE: When are children born in France eligible for French citizenship?

Those born in France to foreign parents can apply to become French between the ages of 13-15 if they meet the following three conditions;

  • if they have lived in France on a regular basis (meaning they have spent most of their time in France since the age of 8-years-old),
  • if they are living in France at the time of the application,
  • if they consent to becoming French.

The process is not automatic – one or both of the child’s parents must apply (via déclaration) on the child’s behalf.

This involves sending in documents including the child’s birth certificate, the parent’s titre de séjour (residency card) if applicable and proof that the child lives in France (eg school records).

READ MORE: French vocabulary you need to know when applying for citizenship

For citizenship at the age of 18, the child must have been born in France, be resident in France on the date of his/her 18th birthday, and they must have been resident in France for at least five years (in total) since the age of 11.

So who is French at birth?

A child whose parents are French at the time of their birth is considered French, even if the child was born overseas. 

Otherwise, there are only a few circumstances for children to gain French nationality at birth:

  • If one of the parents was born in France, even if they are not a citizen (this is sometimes called double droit du sol)
  • If one of the parents was born in Algeria before July 3rd 1962;
  • If the child is born stateless – their parents have no legal nationality; the parents are unknown; the parents come from a country where nationality is only given if you were born there. 

Could the ‘droit du sol’ change?

Droit du sol has people a political issue for those on the right in recent months.

Right-wing politicians attempted to add limits on citizenship acquired through birth to the new immigration bill, although this was struck down by the Constitutional Council.

The Council refused it due to administrative reasons, but added: “On the merits, the appellant Members criticised these provisions for infringing the principles of equality before the law and of the indivisibility of the Republic.”

More recently, France’s hard-line interior minister, Gérald Darmanin announced plans to limit the right, although only in one part of France.

He announced a radical proposal during a visit to the French island of Mayotte, which is part of a volcanic archipelago called the Comoros between Madagascar and Africa.

Darmanin said he hopes to pass a “constitutional revision” that would abolish the droit du sol in Mayotte only – in an attempt to curtail high immigration rates into Mayotte from neighbouring islands.

This would make the rules in Mayotte different to the rest of France and its other overseas territories.

This is, at this stage, only a proposal and could even require a change in the French constitution if it is not to suffer the same fate as the droit du sol amendment to the recent immigration bill.

It is already proving controversial.

READ MORE: Can France’s Constitution be changed?

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in migration from neighbouring parts of Comoros, which are not French. This has been in part due to Mayotte being wealthier and regarded as more stable than the rest of Comoros, even though it is one of the poorest parts of France, with living standards and wages far below the average in mainland France.

There are already some differences with regard to citizenship in Mayotte – in the rest of France (including other overseas territories) if a child is born to foreign parents, they can obtain French nationality as described above.

In Mayotte there is an extra condition – as well as having been born in Mayotte, at least one of the parents must also have been legally on French territory for at least three months at the time of birth.

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