Since 2012, French citizens established abroad can elect their own deputies to the National Assembly of France. In a context of hotly contested legislative elections, the vote of the French diaspora in Montreal is therefore solicited from all sides.
A small electoral fever has taken hold of the large French community of Montreal since the beginning of June. The enthusiasm generated by the legislative elections called by President Emmanuel Macron on June 9th is not diminishing, even more than 5,000 kilometers from the French coast.
As chance would have it, the two main candidates in the first electoral district of French people living abroad, which brings together French people established in Canada and the United States, simultaneously held electoral meetings a stone’s throw away from each other. another on the evening of June 27.
Outgoing MP and member of the presidential majority, Roland Lescure, held a public rally at the Union française de Montréal, on Viger Avenue, in front of about forty supporters of all ages. “My goal is to bring together Republicans, from the centre right to the centre left, to counter the major danger that the extreme right poses in France,” he told the Duty.
Although President Macron’s allies do not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, this does not scare the outgoing MP, who considers himself “one of the people who can speak to a lot of people in France, on the left as well as the right.” He wants to simplify the lives of French people abroad, in particular by facilitating the renewal of passports and by implementing electronic voting.
At the same time, his opponent from the New Popular Front (electoral alliance of the left), Oussama Laraichi, spoke to around fifty supporters in an amphitheater of the Hubert-Aquin pavilion of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). He expressed concern “to see the extreme right at the gates of power”, before calling on voters to support the New Popular Front, which he considers “the only alternative to the extreme right. »
He stressed the left-wing alliance’s program, which wants to resolve the “social emergency” in France by raising the minimum wage to 1,600 euros ($2,344) net per month and freezing the prices of basic necessities. He also promised to “repair the French consular network” by hiring more civil servants to reduce service delays.
The vote of some 1,600,000 French citizens established outside France promises to be highly coveted in these highly competitive elections. Since the 2012 legislative elections, these expatriates have been represented by 11 of the 577 deputies in the French National Assembly. France is one of the very few countries, along with Italy, which grants parliamentary representation to its expatriate citizens.
Montreal is part of the 1D electoral district for French people living abroad. It has 259,000 registered voters, making it the most populous of the 11 reserved for the diaspora. With 65,500 potential voters, the French community of Montreal therefore has significant electoral and demographic weight.
Usually, the French diaspora mobilizes very little for legislative elections. Since 2012, the participation rate of expatriates in these elections has been around the 25% mark, compared to a national average of around 50%. Nevertheless, “the mobilization promises to be much stronger this year,” according to Jean-Pierre Beaud, professor in the Department of Political Science at UQAM. “The stakes are enormous: no one expected a dissolution of the National Assembly, nor such a high score for the National Rally, nor such a rapid union of the left. »
Preliminary data confirms this enthusiasm. According to statistics published on the social network , despite numerous testimonies from voters who said they had difficulty connecting to the voting platform.
A distinct electorate
The voting habits of French expatriates differ markedly from those of their fellow citizens in mainland France. Compared to the national average, the French diaspora overwhelmingly supports Emmanuel Macron (centre right) and offers very little support to the far-right National Rally (RN) party, which dominates voting intentions in mainland France.
The French of Montreal are characterized by a much more marked orientation to the left: while Roland Lescure was re-elected with 56% of the votes in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections at the constituency level, the Montreal diaspora had given 62% of the votes to his opponent from La France insoumise (radical left), Florence Roger.
“The French electorate from outside is Macron’s typical electorate,” explains Jean-Pierre Beaud. These are people who have left France, where the State is very present, and who find themselves in the liberal discourse of Emmanuel Macron, which goes down very badly in France. Whereas in Montreal, French expatriates are mainly students, who are the clientele of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the left. »