In order to become a candidate for presidential election in France, nominees must achieve 500 signatures from mayors or local officials.
It’s a strange system to most of us and was introduced in the 1960s and requires that candidates must, in order to be put forward to the people’s vote, first be endorsed by officials of which there are 150,000 eligible to vote though in practice it usually falls to the mayors of France.
There are many issues with this system, some mayors don’t vote at all because they’re choice is not anonymous and therefore voting for the wrong candidate, i.e. one who is not elected, could result in later problems with say funding or support.
Some mayors have said that they are almost “harassed” by potential candidates into casting their vote.
Some candidates may not be put forward for people voting if they don’t garner sufficient mayoral support which many French people find unacceptable.
