The letter arrived on December 19, addressed directly to Eric Zemmour. In this missive, the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding (CNCCFP) informs the president of Reconquest that his campaign accounts have been approved, learned the Express from the entourage of the former journalist. Legally, this decision entitles the candidate to the reimbursement of his campaign expenses. Eric Zemmour said he spent 10,978,228 euros; he hoped to obtain from the State the maximum amount of the fixed reimbursement for a candidate in the first round, that is to say 8,004,225 euros.
If the account is approved, several observations have nevertheless been made on it, with corrections, in income and expenditure. An unfortunate consequence for the far-right formation: the reimbursement of the State is less than expected. A decision which comes after a long contradictory phase, during which the Commission sent around 400 questions to the candidate. A figure unprecedented in its magnitude, which testifies at least to a lack of rigor in the accounting of Eric Zemmour. Among the points which had raised the questioning of specialists (and the doubts of his political opponents), L’Express had raised the rent to the price of friend of the campaign HQ, the promotional tour of his book La France n’a pas says his last word (Rubempré, 2021), the loan of millionaire Charles Gave or even wild poster campaigns. “What fueled the fantasies of journalists is not found in the observations…”, assures Gilbert Payet, the financial agent of the campaign. With the chartered accountant, Benoît Rigolot, the former prefect was responsible for answering questions from the CNCCFP.
Impossible, for the moment, to know the nature of the corrections: the campaign team does not wish to communicate on the question, and the CNCCFP is kept silent (the accounts can be consulted once the appeal period has passed and the invoices anonymized). Without going into details, Gilbert Payet, specifies: “Our account is approved, but there are several observations on which we have questions. We ask ourselves questions…” According to him, Eric Zemmour and his relatives are evaluating the advisability of bringing an appeal before the administrative judge, called “appeal for excess of power”, an ordinary procedure before the Council of State. They have until January 19, one month after receipt of the letter, to decide.
