Cheminade’s Presidential Bid Validated by the Constitutional Council

The French Constitutional Council announced on March 18 the 11 Presidential candidates who had each received at least 500 duly validated “presentations” from elected officials throughout the country — and Jacques Cheminade is among them, after a hard-fought battle by his whole movement. According to the regulations, signatures must come in from at least 30 different administrative departments (out of 101), and not more than 50 signatures from the same department, to ensure national representation.

After the court’s announcement this morning, Jacques Cheminade held a press conference to make his candidacy official and to present the three books he has written. A written summary of his 10-minute statement is available on his website.

The attempt by the major parties to lock smaller candidates out of the Presidential election under the new law has failed, Cheminade began by saying. “I’m happy about that for the French people and for all those who succeeded in becoming candidates.”

Cheminade continued, “Whoever the next President of France is, will not have a majority. Therefore I present a platform of ideas to fight for.”

He went on to review the major planks of his campaign platform:

* Do what Emmanuel Macron and François Hollande never had the courage to do, which is to effect a real separation of commercial banks from investment banks;

* Re-establish a true national bank to issue public productive credit to finance the France of tomorrow;

* Re-found a Europe of nations and great projects, freed from the financial stranglehold imposed by the EU and the euro, in which NATO is the armed branch;

* Look to the BRICS countries to build a new economic system and to make France an example of peace and development in the world, based on three main drivers: the sea, space, and the development of Africa.”

Cheminade thanked the elected officials and the activists who made it possible for him to run and “to inject some truth and a fresh wind in France.” He called on all Frenchmen in this “dramatic period of history” to read his program more carefully than they ever had before, because “at a time when others are holding forth on the deck of the Titanic and throwing around figures that will be swept away by the impending crisis,” the votes that are called “useful,” because they are given to someone who has a good chance of winning, “must become votes of reason, responsibility, knowledge and passion.”

Cheminade concluded: “Je me bats pour une nouvelle Libération. Cette volonté politique de libération est notre culture française.”  (“I fight for a new Libération.  This political will for liberation is our French culture.”)