MONTREAL — A large number of French nationals are expected to travel to Montreal on Saturday to participate in the first round of France’s legislative elections, as a far-right party surges in the polls.
Quebec has 260,000 French citizens, including 200,000 in Montreal.
The French electoral system allows citizens residing abroad in 11 different constituencies to each elect one member of parliament to the National Assembly, which has 577 seats.
French citizens in Montreal belong to the same district as French people living in the United States, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
On Saturday, they will choose between nine candidates, from French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party to the National Rally, an anti-immigration party on track to win the most seats.
Marie Lapierre, French consul general in Montreal, says she thinks turnout in the city in these elections will be double what it was in 2022.
Greater mobilization in Montreal
“In the last legislative elections in 2022, we had a turnout of around 25%. This time, we prepared for more… we are ready to welcome a turnout of around 50%,” she said. “There is a very strong mobilization of the French community who were really ready to help us organize the vote.”
Yan Niesing, president of the Union Française de Montréal, an organization that helps French nationals settle in the city, called the election “historic.”
“Everyone wants to have their say,” he added.
Frédéric Mérand, professor of political science at the Center for International Studies and Research at the University of Montreal, says the level of engagement in the city is unusual for a French election.
“You see signs and posters and people handing out flyers on the streets of Montreal for an election that’s taking place in France, so it’s significant in that sense,” he said.
This election represents an exceptional moment in the political history of France.
Emmanuel Macron called early elections earlier this month after his party suffered a crushing defeat by the far right in the European Parliament vote. The first round on Saturday could see the country’s first far-right government since the Nazi occupation of World War II, or even no majority emerge.
The outcome of the vote, after the second round on July 7 and an exceptionally brief election campaign, remains highly uncertain as three major political blocs face off: the far-right National Rally, the centrist alliance of President Emmanuel Macron and the New Popular Front coalition, which includes the center-left, the Greens and the far-left forces.
Frédéric Mérand affirms that the main contenders for Montreal voters are the centrist and left-wing parties.
“All the other candidates are expected to be very, very far behind,” he said.
In 2022, a left-wing alliance was largely the favorite among Montreal’s French voters, as Emmanuel Macron’s party came in second with 25% of the city’s French residents’ votes, and the National Rally n received only 2% of the votes. However, thanks to the votes of citizens in the United States and elsewhere in the constituency, it was ultimately Emmanuel Macron’s candidate who won the seat.
Chedly Belkhodja, a professor at Concordia University’s School of Public and Community Affairs, attributes the surge in voter interest to a historic battle in France’s polarized society.
“This election will perhaps show a side of France that we have not seen for many, many years, namely the rise of the extreme right,” he said, adding that parties that were once marginal have become more normalized in recent years.
A short campaign for candidates
One candidate Franco-Montrealers can choose from is Washington, DC-based Olivier Piton, who represents the Republicans, the center-right party to which former President Nicolas Sarkozy belonged. Mr. Piton says he is the best candidate to represent his voters in North America, whose concerns differ from those of French citizens in Europe.
“Now we have to focus on what is really important to us… how can we defend our rights as French nationals, as residents of Canada or the United States,” he said.
Elias Forneris, candidate for Une Nouvelle Énergie pour la France, also resides in the American capital, and has spent much of his life in the United States and the United Kingdom. With little time to prepare following Mr. Macron’s surprise announcement, he focused most of his campaign online.
“I think there is something that unites the French living in Canada and the United States. It is common for us to be forgotten by the State in France even though we are citizens just like them, so what I would like to do is to be able to represent the voice of the French here,” he said.
