The Socialist Party of France will choose its presidential candidate by a primary on Sunday, October 9. According to this story, voters must pay one Euro in order to vote, and also must attest that they are sympathetic to the left side of the spectrum. It appears that the party is paying for the administration of the primary, and the purpose of charging each voter one Euro is to pay the expenses of administering the primary.
How much profit for the SP — to be given to the socialist poor, of course ???
There are a couple very good articles on the FairVote website on the Socialist Party primary: http://www.fairvote.org/french-socialists-primaries and http://www.fairvote.org/guide-to-french-primary
One point I found noteworthy is that the Socialist Party in France is administering and paying for its own primary on the belief that political parties “are private associations, not government entities. The French government will not pay for a party’s private nomination process.”
That could have some relevance in the discussion of whether Americans Elect’s online nominating convention is equivalent to a U.S. public party primary election, or if AE should be able to impose rules of conduct on convention delegates.
ALL nominations for PUBLIC offices are PUBLIC actions — even in very strange France – esp. since the 1940 defeat.