Last weekend I finally managed to vote in my first Presidential election as a French citizen. It was touch and go, receiving my electors card just a few days before the vote. On Sunday morning I set off for the 'salle des fetes' where the vote was taking place. The names of the candidates are printed on slips of paper, according to French law voters have to pick up two slips before going into the voting booth. In the booth one of the two slips is placed in a small blue envelope and the other discarded. An empty enevelope or two names in the envelope represents a nul vote. The next step is to join a queue at the end of which there are three people. One person takes the elector card and, in town with more than 3,000 inhabitants, checks the identity. He calls the name to a second person who checks against the registered voters list, if everything is okay he calls out 'à voter'. At this point the third person opens the slot on a clear plastic cube and the voter slides the blue enevelope in. And that's it.
On my turn the person checking my electors card asked, with a small smile, 'How does a person born in England vote in France?'. I explained that I now had French nationality.
While his question was good humoured, for me it underlines one of the issues of this campaign, that of foreigners in France. People are concerned about immigration and the loss of power to the European Union. This in part explains the good results for Marine Le Pen and the Front Nationale. In a time of crisis people are afraid and feel threatened by foreigners. While I've lived in France for 11 years, and my village for 7 years, and I'm now a French national I don't think I'll ever be accepted as French. Nobody in my village is openly racist towards me but they always make humourist commenst about 'les Anglais'.
Now we have to wait for the second round to see who comes out on top. Although I must confess that in the current economic climate there is no real difference or choice.
