A four-decade-old political sea serpent. The deputy Renaissance (ex-LREM) and president of the Law Commission at the National Assembly Sacha Houlié tabled, Tuesday, August 9, a bill for “granting the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal elections” to all foreigners, even non-Europeans, arousing criticism from Gérald Darmanin, from the right and from the RN. “This recognition is long overdue. Yet we owe it to those who, very often and for a long time, participate in the dynamism of our society”defends the text of the proposal, which also denounces a “discrimination between two categories of foreigners”.
The member for Vienne, behind the text, sees in it a “beautiful and long fight“: “France would enrich its integration model” he argues with AFP, and “would also ebb community demands that feed on marginalization”. Since the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, only citizens of member countries of the European Union can vote in municipal elections.
This is not the first time that the idea has emerged in France. The project of a right to vote for foreigners in municipal elections was already among the 110 proposals of François Mitterrand’s campaign program in 1981. But once elected, the president eventually had to back down.
With a Senate mainly on the right at the time, the Socialist Party did not have the 555 votes necessary for the revision of article 3 of the Constitution, essential for any law on the subject, recalls franceinfo. As a reminder, in 1981, the text said that “are electors, under the conditions determined by law, all adult French nationals of both sexes, enjoying their civil and political rights”. In 1985, in an interview on TF1, François Mitterrand explained that the French were not ready and “did not make it possible to hasten this reform”.
Three years later, a few months before the 1988 presidential election, the president, candidate for re-election, revived the debate: “I am among those who think that this right should be extended.” But faced with the hostility of public opinion, the president will finally give concrete expression to the abandonment of the project in 1988, in his “Letter to all French people” which took stock of his seven-year term. François Mitterrand was content then to “deplore personally” that “the state of our morals” does not allow to go to the end of the measure, reminded The world in 2005.
In 2005, the idea had also crossed the mind of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior under Jacques Chirac. “I consider that it would not be abnormal for a foreigner in a regular situation, who works, pays taxes and has resided for at least ten years in France, to be able to vote in municipal elections”, he said in an interview with World.
“I want (…) to strengthen the chance of integration for foreigners in a legal situation. The right to vote in municipal elections is part of it.”
Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interiorin an interview with “Le Monde”, October 25, 2005
The minister had drawn the wrath of his political party, the UMP. The President, Jacques Chirac, and the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, were firmly opposed to it, referring to naturalization, the only condition for them to access the right to vote. “It is nationality that gives the right to express oneself on the major local or national political orientations”, had decided the Prime Minister of the time in an interview with the Parisian.
A few years later, Nicolas Sarkozy finally came out against foreigners’ right to vote in local elections at the time of the 2012 presidential election, calling the idea of “hazardous proposition”.
This same year 2012, François Hollande, then socialist presidential candidate, relaunched the debate by integrating it into his campaign program. “I will introduce the right to vote for foreigners in local elections without fearing anything for our citizenship”he had declared, during a meeting.
The socialist candidate had said that he was considering an institutional reform for 2013 giving the right to vote to non-EU foreigners (who are not nationals of member states of the European Union) in local elections if he were elected, recalls franceinfo .
“It will only be for municipal elections, because it will be the same regime as for European foreigners who already vote in municipal elections, who are not eligible, who cannot become mayor or deputy, who can become municipal councillors”, he said at the time. François Hollande then intended to grant this right to vote to foreigners “legally resident in France for five years”.
Two years later, President François Hollande had again confirmed, during an intervention on BFMTV and RMC, that a text would be presented “before the end of the quinquennium”specifying that he had not wanted to introduce this proposal before the municipal elections to avoid being made “the reproach”, remember Le Figaro.
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The project will never succeed. In November 2015, then Prime Minister Manuel Valls finally buried that campaign promise. “It should not be proposed because it is not possible politically, it is not possible constitutionally and because I do not think it is a priority”he said during a debate with the students of Sciences Po.
For the time being, the law proposal of deputy Sacha Houlié seems, like previous attempts, far from succeeding. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who proposed a debate in Parliament in October on immigration, has already said “firmly opposed to this measure”, his entourage told AFP. On the far right, the acting president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, was immediately indignant. On the right, LR deputy Eric Ciotti also tweeted that he would oppose “all [ses] strengths” to this text “serious and dangerous”.
On the side of the PCF, the proposal is taken with caution. Party spokesman and deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Housing and Refugee Protection, Ian Brossat, blamed the majority for leaving “in all directions on the right to vote of foreigners” in a tweet.
Funny: when the left debates a subject, the macronists say that it scatters like a puzzle. When they themselves go all over the place on the right to vote for foreigners, what do you call it?
— Ian Brossat (@IanBrossat) August 10, 2022
Questioned in February 2019 in Evry-Courcouronnes (Essonne) during a meeting of the great debate organized following the crisis of “yellow vests”, President Emmanuel Macron had affirmed that he was not in favor of the right to vote. foreigners, preferring that foreigners residing in France apply for French nationality in order to be able to vote.
Sacha Houlié will present this bill, “filed in a personal capacity”, to the Renaissance group during the return to parliament. Even if it were voted in the National Assembly, the measure will then, to be adopted, be approved by the Senate, where the right has a majority, before being submitted to a referendum.