A long-standing request made by the left, which finds itself supported within the ranks of the presidential camp. The deputy Renaissance (ex-LRM) and president of the law commission, Sacha Houlié, tabled a bill on Tuesday August 9 to “granting the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal elections” to all foreigners residing in France.
“This recognition is long overdue. We owe it, however, to those who have often and for a long time contributed to the dynamism of our society.defends the text, which thereby denounces a “discrimination between two categories of foreigners”.
Since 1992, only foreign citizens of member countries of the European Union can take part in French municipal elections. “It no longer shocks anyone to see Spaniards or Bulgarians voting in municipal elections in France. But it shocked a lot of people that the English no longer had the right to vote in France after Brexit.explained the deputy of Vienne to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Nupes deputies would be “a pleasure” to vote the law
Sea serpent on the left, this extended right to vote for foreigners in local elections had been promised by François Mitterrand and François Hollande, without success. Sacha Houlié, who came from the left, who tabled this bill on his own initiative, will present the text to the Renaissance group when parliament returns.
The deputies of the left alliance Nupes would be “a pleasure to vote” the bill of the deputy Renaissance assured Wednesday the MEP La France insoumise Manon Aubry, at the microphone ofEurope 1.
Wishing that the initiative succeeds, the latter, however, said he doubted it: “I just note that the government for the moment has rather looked on the side of the right, even the extreme right of the hemicycle (…), so I have my doubts about the fact that it will go to the end”.
Among environmentalists, the mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, welcomed on LCI “an excellent idea”pointing out that“EELV strongly supports this proposal”.
But the Macronist deputy has drawn criticism from the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and those from the right and the far right. Mr. Darmanin, who embodies the right wing of the presidential camp in the government and announced during the past week the holding of a debate on immigration in October in Parliament, “Is firmly opposed to this measure”his entourage told AFP.
On the right, the deputy Les Républicains Eric Ciotti tweeted that he would oppose ” all [ses] forces » to this text “serious and dangerous”. On BFM-TV, Tuesday eveninghe asked “solemnly to the government” and to the Prime Minister, “to dissociate oneself from this bill”.
Fear of a “populist debate”
In the ranks of the National Rally, the acting president of the party, Jordan Bardella, was also indignant. “While Gérald Darmanin agitated the media over the (failed) expulsion of an Islamist, the macronists quietly tabled a bill for foreigners’ right to vote”he claimed on Twitterthus denouncing a “final dispossession of the French from their country”.
Mr. Bardella refers to the judicial suspension of the expulsion of Imam Hassan Iquioussen, accused by the French authorities of having made anti-Semitic, homophobic and “anti-women” during sermons or conferences.
A reference also made by the deputy of the far-right party Laurent Jacobelli, who said on Wednesday morning on Franceinfo : “That means that, for Mr. Houlié, Imam Iquioussen could have had the right to vote. We have crossed the limits of indecency. “All of this seems a little anachronistic to us and reveals the true thoughts of the government “, he denounced.
Louis Aliot, mayor of Perpignan, candidate for the presidency of the party against Mr. Bardella, said on France Inter that this proposal, “old chestnut tree of the left since 1981”was ” a signal “ launched at Nupes, but which will not have “no reality in the vote of the law, fortunately elsewhere”.
Mr. Houlié prefers to see, on the contrary, in the defense of this right, a “long and beautiful fight”. “France would enrich its integration model” he argues, and “would also ebb community demands that feed on marginalization”.
“What worries me is the populist debate on this issue,” he advances. But the elected macronist wants to believe that “ being able to embrace all the subjects that affect foreigners in France directly or indirectly is a way of giving it a little height ».