General policy speech: what is the “bank of democracy”, this idea dating from 2017 and relaunched by François Bayrou ?

The concept ? A structure that would allow political parties to obtain funding from '"public organizations" and not just private ones. The project has already been abandoned once, too cumbersome.

François Bayrou has a lot of ideas. During his general policy speech, the Prime Minister relaunched the idea on Tuesday, January 14, of creating a “democracy bank” so that political parties can obtain funding from “public organizations” and not just private ones. “Relaunched”, because this project actually dates back to 2017, when the president of the MoDem was Minister of Justice, a position he held for around thirty days.

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As recalled by Franceinfo, this option which seems to be close to the heart of the mayor of Pau had finally been rejected. “On July 17 (2018, Editor's note), Nicole Belloubet, who had become Minister of Justice, announced the abandonment of the idea of ​​this banking structure. She had, before the deputies, put forward reasons linked to the heaviness of the structure to be put in place or to the requirement of neutrality of the State, explained our colleagues in an article of March 2018. She indicated above all that she was relying on a report from the General Inspectorate of Administration and the General Inspectorate of Finance, which highlighted the fact that if the parties are unable to access credit, it is not so much due to a lack of banking offers as for questions of information or delays, the responsibility of the credit mediator.”

Money should not rule consciences and money should not take precedence over the free will of citizens

This Tuesday, François Bayrou said he hoped that parties “could finance themselves without having to resort to circumvention strategies” via “the creation of a democracy bank so that the financing of political parties and campaigns no longer depends on the choices of private banks, but can eventually and as a recourse, be the work of public bodies placed under the control of Parliament”. “Money should not rule consciences and money should not take precedence over the free will of citizens”, he argued in his general policy statement.

An idea supported by the RN

“The goal (of the democracy bank, Editor's note), is to offer candidates for the presidency 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 a article from 20 Minutes published in April 2022.

Le Parisien specifies that this idea is notably supported by the National Rally, “which regularly struggles to find funding”.