French expats to get their own MPs
French expats to get their own MPs | World news | guardian.co.uk
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British expats living on the Costa del Sol or in restored French rural ruins in what is now known as "Dordogne-shire" have often felt they should have their own MP at Westminster, to fight their corner on issues such as pensions, healthcare and how to crawl back home after financial meltdown.
Now, after decades of promises dating back to François Mitterrand, France wants to position itself as a model of expat rights, giving the 2.5 million French people abroad their own MPs for the first time. French officials have sliced the world into 11 constituencies, which will next year give France far-flung politicians including an MP for the US and Canada and an MP for north and east Africa. With the second biggest diplomatic network of embassies and consulates in the world after the US, France now joins a small group of European countries, including Italy, which allows its diaspora to choose its own expat MPs.
Paris's geographical carve-up has already caused political spats. The Socialist presidential candidate, François Hollande, failed to secure a close aide the candidate's ticket in north Africa, Christine Lagarde had been tipped as MP for the US before she left for the International Monetary Fund and the industry minister Eric Besson, supposed to be running as MP for Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Monaco, said he wanted to quit politics.
With next year's presidential and parliamentary elections months away, and a desperate rush to inform French expats they must register to vote before 31 December, London is emerging as a crucial constituency – the closest to Paris and one of the biggest in terms of numbers. The MP for "northern Europe" will represent French people in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic states. But London is the heart of it, home to around 300,000 of the 400,000 French people in Britain, with so many French expats that it is considered France's sixth biggest city. Nicolas Sarkozy cemented the political importance of "Paris-on-Thames" during his presidential election campaign in 2007, staging an unprecedented London rally urging people to come home, saying: "France is still your country even if you're disappointed by it." To some it seemed as extraordinary as David Cameron taking a campaign battle bus through the villages of expat Brits in western France.
"It's not just a London election. The whole constituency is almost 4m sq km with possibly 500,000 French people spread across it," said Axelle Lemaire, the Socialist candidate for the UK and northern Europe, who has worked as a research assistant for a Labour MP. "But London is the biggest concentration. Education and raising children with two languages is a big issue. There aren't enough places in French schools. French people living in the UK are young, the majority under 40. There are more women than men. One third work in the public sector, especially in education. The idea of lots of French bankers in the City is only part of the picture. Most are family orientated, with more than three children per family."
More French people are coming to live in the UK than heading back the other way. Lemaire said: "The question is why are so many people still coming to London to live and work? We need to learn from that. Sometimes it's to escape the hierarchy and discrimination of the French system."
Emmanuelle Savarit, the north European candidate for Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, who runs her own consultancy firm in London, said: "The aim is not just to give a voice to French people abroad, but to bring Paris some inspiration from how things are done in other countries. People's main concerns are tax, education, health and pensions."
She wanted to fight the perception in France that expats were tax-evaders. "Only 1% of French abroad are tax exiles. The rest work like everyone else."
In the last presidential election, a majority of French expats worldwide voted for Sarkozy, including in the UK. Of the new 11 foreign constituencies, nine voted right in 2007. In London, French expats are considered to lean right, but they don't often turn out to vote. In 2007, the turnout was 30%. "The challenge is to mobilise those people," Savarit said.
An official said 100,000 French expat voters had so far registered at the London consulate.
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*shrugs* So what?
The reason this is happening now is given in the last paragraph. Ex-pats vote for the right, and it looks like Sarko's going to need all the votes he can get.
What French MPs don't generally do is represent their constituents (I don't even know the name of mine). They're supposed to represent the interests of the nation as a whole, ignoring local issues. It's the Senators who are supposed to represent their constituencies (they don't, but that's a different issue). The introduction of ex-pat MPs will just muddle the issue further, since governments will feel even more obliged than they do already to keep backwater consulates open at great expense, against the national interest.
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