Courrier Expat: What are the voting procedures for French people living abroad?
Laurence Haguenauer: Nearly 1,450,000 French people are registered on the consular electoral list. The voting methods for the presidential election are voting at the ballot box or by proxy. The Directorate for French People Abroad (DFAE) steers, in close collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior, the entire process, which ranges from the drafting of regulatory and legislative texts upstream to very concrete operations. Thus, 34,752,000 ballot papers and 215 tons of electoral material were sent by plane and by truck to more than 200 diplomatic and consular posts. The FDFA provides support to the consular network throughout the weekend and will report the results to the Ministry of the Interior on Sunday evening. The real players in this election are our colleagues abroad who will open on 9 [avril] in America and the Caribbean and the 10 [avril] in the rest of the world 988 polling stations at 443 sites with 7,000 volunteers.
Will the French living in Shanghai and subject to confinement be able to vote?
Repeated representations have been made to local authorities, including at a high level, in order to allow, on the one hand, the authorization to open polling stations and, on the other hand, an exceptional authorization to leave for voters and members of polling stations and assessors confined. Unfortunately, it was answered by the Shanghai authorities on April 7 that “Given the serious and complicated situation in Shanghai, it is objectively impossible to meet the conditions for your consulate to organize the election, for the safety of all people residing in Shanghai”. Consequently, because of these exceptional circumstances which are the official impossibility of traveling and the consequences to which our compatriots are exposed as a result of the measures taken by the local authorities, and after consulting the Constitutional Council, it was decided not to not open the 4 polling stations in Shanghai for the first round of the presidential election.
What difficulties have your services faced this year?
The pandemic has been a major challenge. As we are seeing in Shanghai, health uncertainty weighs on our electoral system abroad until the last moment. More broadly, our posts have had to take into account the health protection measures planned locally to ensure that our fellow citizens can vote in the safest conditions, by providing for example more space for polling stations, as well as masks for fragile people.
The second difficulty that I can mention is the consequences of the war in Ukraine, with changes in air routes which have made the delivery of ballot papers and electoral propaganda even more difficult than it already is. But everything has been done so that these logistical obstacles are overcome and that the French abroad can, like their compatriots on the national territory, exercise their right to vote.