Lhe presidential camp would have done well without a controversy in the middle of summer. It was without counting on Sacha Houlié, the president of the Law Commission of the National Assembly. The deputy of Vienne, elected under the Renaissance-Ensemble! label, tabled a bill on Tuesday August 9 to open the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal elections to all foreigners residing in France. Currently, only nationals of member countries of the European Union can stand and vote in local elections.
Filed “in a personal capacity”, this unexpected proposal was welcomed by the left-wing opposition. Julien Bayou, deputy EELV-Nupes, described this measure as “obvious” and recalled that environmentalists have been defending it since 2002. “We would be happy to vote for it,” added MEP Manon Aubry (La France insoumise), speaking on behalf of her political family. Conversely, Sacha Houlié’s approach found little echo within the executive. Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, said he was “firmly opposed”. On the right, the Republicans decried the proposal of the Macronist deputy. The RN has promised a “fierce opposition”.
Integration and democracy
The opening of the right to vote to non-European foreigners – even for municipal elections – fractures the political class. The pros (often on the left) and the antis (often on the right) tear each other apart, each advancing arguments. On the “for” side, the imperatives of integration, democracy, fairness and equality are highlighted, as summarized in March 2012 by the magazine After tomorrowin an article.
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Sacha Houlié thus believes that “France would enrich its integration model” and “would also cause community demands to ebb and flow, which feed on marginalization”. In his presidential program, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) considered that this new law would make it possible to build a “creolized” society and to build “a universal Republic against racism and discrimination”. Its supporters also argue that French society is ready. According to a survey carried out by the firm Harris interactive in 2021, 67% of French people declare themselves in favor of the right to vote for foreigners in all local elections, i.e. 13 points more than in 2013.
Community abuses
The antis, on the other hand, put forward other arguments. Still according to the review After tomorrow, they consider that the reform would break with the “republican model”. They would prefer that priority be given to the acquisition of French nationality. Many of the “against” also fear that the right to vote for foreigners promotes communitarianism. In the first round of the 2022 presidential election, the leader of La France insoumise garnered his vote in some neighborhoods, in particular thanks to the support of decolonial and Islamist activists, as shown by Point. Eric Ciotti, in the columns of Figaroalso fears that the right to vote for foreigners will subject France to “foreign pressure”, particularly from Algeria.
Another argument is the consubstantial link between voting and nationality. “Citizenship seems totally absorbed by nationality, that is to say by sovereignty”, wrote in 2007 Hervé Andrès, doctor of political science, in the review Company migrations. The proof: “the vote must remain linked to citizenship, because without it there is no longer a nation”, declared MP RN Julien Odoul. In a tweet, the acting president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, lamented “the final dispossession of the French from their country”.
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This is not the first time that the subject has crossed the public debate in France, as the think tank L’Institut Montaigne reminds us in a file. In 1981, François Mitterrand (Socialist Party), in his presidential program, proposed to open this right to foreigners living for more than 5 years on French soil. In 2000 and 2011, two constitutional bills to this effect were tabled without success. The first was not sent to the Senate. The second was rejected by the National Assembly. In 2012, the PS candidate François Hollande, like his socialist predecessor at the Élysée, defended the right to vote for non-EU foreigners for local elections, before giving it up.