What happens when expatriates get the Vote – that is to say – Representation?
Is it so extraordinary that the Americans are following the French elections as they affect French residents abroad?
Bloomberg News reports it in the link below. It’s worth a read and to ask oneself as one reads “What if this was about British citizens and British Politicians?”.
Bloomberg News reports it in the link below. It’s worth a read and to ask oneself as one reads “What if this was about British citizens and British Politicians?”.
About 500,000 people have registered to cast their ballots from outside France this year in the Presidential Elections, up from 250,000 in the 2007 vote and 125,000 in 2002, according to Herve Heyraud, the publisher of LePetitJournal.com, an online publication for French expats.
French citizens abroad have had a form of Representation in the Paris National Government for many years. But this is the first time that they have been able to elect Députés for the National Assembly from eleven constituencies around the world in the same manner as constituencies in France.
This new situation of direct representation is having a profound effect on the relationship between the citizen and the politician. It is worth comparing the French with the British citizen who can only carry a vote for 15 years after leaving the UK and can then only vote for an existing constituency and so he or she has no direct representation of their needs and interests (or their virtues and value to the British cause) at all.
The French citizen abroad seems, from this and other reports, to have become in consequence more than usually passionate about things French- the culture – its future in the world – its education system- its economy – with this new situation. And the French politician shows in turn an astonishingly greater concern for these distant citizens.
Most British citizens abroad at this time would seem to be disinterested, somewhat alienated, and bored with the British scene at home. The British politicians show little concern for the British Citizen abroad.
How it would all change if the Citizens abroad had someone who represented them by election at Westminster in either the Commons or the Lords!
Brian Cave www.votes-for-expat-brits.com
email:- lefourquet@orange.fr
Votes for Expat Brits blog 