Starting on Monday, watch the stopwatches. During these next three weeks, the television and radio stations will have to respect the fairness of the speaking time of the candidates still running in the second round of the municipal elections, scheduled for June 28.
"The editors take care that the lists of candidates, the personalities or the parties or groupings of parties which support them profit from a presentation and an equitable access to the antenna", one reads in a recommendation of the Superior council of the audio-visual (CSA) put on line on May 27.
The chains will have to record speaking time over three periods: from June 8 to 12, from June 8 to 19, then from June 8 to 26. Each time, they have a period of three days to transmit them to the CSA, which then publishes them on its site.
Several criteria taken into account
What is meant by "speaking time equity"? As with every election, the CSA is based on different criteria, including the candidate's previous electoral results or his political background, his level of participation in the campaign, or even the polls.
Unlike a presidential campaign, there is no strict equality of speaking time to be respected. In charge of the CSA to assess, once the statements transmitted by the chains and the stations, if they correspond well to an equity. Otherwise, the organization can request a rebalancing or, as a last resort, impose a sanction.
The originality of the control of this second round of the 2020 municipal elections is that it begins three weeks in advance. The official campaign will not start until June 15, and an in-between-round period usually lasts only a week. Because of the coronavirus crisis, this time will have passed three and a half months between the two rounds (March 15 and June 28), including almost two months of confinement.
Unusually long in-between period
“Unusual time passed between the first and the second round of the elections. This is not a new election, but it must nevertheless be possible for elected officials to have time to get back in touch with voters, "Michèle Léridon, president of the rights and freedoms, pluralism and ethics working group, told the Figaro this Saturday. to the CSA.
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In addition, with the ban on meeting more than 10 people and the impossibility of holding meetings during this phase 2 of the deconfinement, the candidates will be even more encouraged than usual to express themselves in the media. Hence heightened vigilance and which begins quite early.