Former Minister of Overseas Territories (2017-2020) and then of the Sea (2020-2022), Annick Girardin, elected Senator of Saint Pierre and Miquelon in September 2023, was declared “not eligible for a period of one year” by the Constitutional Council (Agreement No. 2024-6293 SEN of September 13, 2024 | Constitutional Council), Friday, September 13, thus losing his mandate.
The Council was contacted on February 26 by the National Commission on Campaign Accounts and Political Financing, which had recently rejected the campaign report by Annick Girardin (Rumbo al futuro), “because this account was not accompanied by bank statements proving the operations carried out by its financial agent” and, above all, that the elected senator “did not justify that the financial agent had completed all the steps necessary to obtain the opening of said account”.
No account created in the absence of expenses.
In response, the former minister, a member of the Radical Party, invoked “The peculiarity of the senatorial election of the archipelago” and discuss “that had not incurred any expenses nor received any income” and so? “your financial agent opened a bank account in March 2024”or after the elections.
However, in its decision, the Constitutional Council recalls that legislative provisions require candidates for Senate elections to open a “campaign account” to track “all revenues collected and, according to their nature, all expenses incurred or incurred in connection with the election”.
His ineligibility for any mandate” for a period of one year [est effective] from this moment on”AND “METROme Girardin is declared automatically resigned »This is specified in the text issued by the Council. By-elections will therefore be organised.
In Saint Pierre and Miquelon, an archipelago of just six thousand inhabitants off the coast of Canada, only thirty-nine voters were called to the polls and twenty of them had appointed Annick Girardin to represent them. The Constitutional Council must also rule on the case of her two opponents, who were also singled out by the National Commission of Campaign Accounts, reports La 1re.
Former MP Annick Girardin held several portfolios between 2014 and 2022 (Secretary of State for Development, Minister of Public Administration, Minister of Overseas Affairs and then of the Sea), before joining the Senate at the end of the elections last September.
