As of March 18, ministers must reduce their movements to almost nothing to interfere with the campaign. But they can support a candidate if they warn any confusion with their official functions.
Le Monde with AFP
This is the time of clarification. As of Friday, March 18, government members will enter into a “reserve” period, so as not to interfere with the election campaign. According to the rules recalled by the Government General Secretariat (GSM) in a circular of February 10, government members must now “refrain from moving in the performance of their duties”. The SGG recalls that any member of the government “should not intervene in the election campaign or provide support to a candidate when it is officially expressed”.
Some exemptions remain possible, provided the prior authorization of the Prime Minister, “if the trip is justified by an exceptional event” or by a “manifestation of which the minister does not control the date”. In the first case of figure between, for example, a possible attack that would impose the immediate presence of the Minister of the Interior. In the second include “public commemorations”.
The SGG specifies that the official visits of foreign leaders in France remain possible. Ministers can also go abroad as long as it is part of “in the diplomatic action of France”.
“Things are clear”
However, the reserve period “does not prohibit the travel of ministers, as political figures,” to participate in meetings, for example. “These trips must be scheduled in such a way that there can be confusion with their government activities,” advocates the SGG, excluding any “use of public means, particularly in terms of transport”. On the point of vehicles, exceptions may be granted, “for security reasons” in particular, provided they reimburse the costs generated.
The SGG also warns the ministries on the case of employees and their own participation in an election campaign, evoking the risks of “polemics on this cumulation”. This participation, whose related costs must also be incorporated into the accounts, “can not be admitted only outside hours of service or on annual leave. It seems difficult to exceed the duration of ten working days”.
Friday morning, on RMC-BFM-TV , Gabriel Attal noticed that “this is not the first time in history that an outgoing president is a candidate for his re-election, and that ministers can support his candidacy”. And the government spokesperson to engage in a little pedagogy:
I will be tomorrow in Meeting in Montpellier with my colleague Roselyne Bachelot. It is obviously the organization of the campaign that finances the trip, and the activists who lead us by car from the station to the Meeting. All this is very organized for a very long time, and things are clear.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, is also expected in Meeting in Nice on Wednesday. His plane will be paid by Mr. Macron’s campaign team, he will have to take a taxi upon arrival and his counselor insured for a holiday.
It is a question of avoiding the executive any charge of use of the means of the State while the presidential campaign enters its last straight line. On March 11, the Head of State itself had been sermed by the National Commission for Control of the Election Campaign for the Presidential Election (CNCCEP), for disseminating its letter of application on its official Twitter account of Head of State, followed by 7.9 million subscribers.