From Europe News:
French Senate set for tough debate on votes for foreigners
Reuters 9 December 2011
By Nicholas Vinocur
A long-running issue over whether to let non-EU immigrants vote in French local elections is to be considered in the Senate on Thursday, with conservatives vowing to stamp out a left-wing initiative five months before a presidential election.
Posturing before what was billed to be a heated parliament debate shows how both sides are using the argument to gain favor with their supporters on a tricky and sensitive question of identity.
The vote in the left-controlled Senate, the upper house of parliament, is more about making a point than changing the law to allow foreign residents to vote. The bill has no chance of passing in a right-controlled lower house, pollsters say. It was abandoned once before, in 2000 for similar reasons.
Socialists and other left-wingers, emboldened by a historic victory over the right in Senate elections in September, say that letting non-European Union citizens vote and get elected in municipal elections would bring more immigrants into the fold of French republican values and soothe community tensions.
A change would also bring French law into line with EU members Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
Britain, Spain and Portugal let some non-EU foreigners, most of them from former colonies, vote in some elections, while Italy, Germany and Austria share France's more restrictive current approach.
To France's ruling right, allowing a foreign and largely Muslim constituency to influence local policy would usher in halal meals at school cafeterias and women-only days at municipal swimming pools, controversial issues they say endanger the nation's secular tradition and which have knee-jerk resonance with far-right voters. (...)
Posted December 9th, 2011 by pk
French Senate set for tough debate on votes for foreigners
Reuters 9 December 2011
By Nicholas Vinocur
A long-running issue over whether to let non-EU immigrants vote in French local elections is to be considered in the Senate on Thursday, with conservatives vowing to stamp out a left-wing initiative five months before a presidential election.
Posturing before what was billed to be a heated parliament debate shows how both sides are using the argument to gain favor with their supporters on a tricky and sensitive question of identity.
The vote in the left-controlled Senate, the upper house of parliament, is more about making a point than changing the law to allow foreign residents to vote. The bill has no chance of passing in a right-controlled lower house, pollsters say. It was abandoned once before, in 2000 for similar reasons.
Socialists and other left-wingers, emboldened by a historic victory over the right in Senate elections in September, say that letting non-European Union citizens vote and get elected in municipal elections would bring more immigrants into the fold of French republican values and soothe community tensions.
A change would also bring French law into line with EU members Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
Britain, Spain and Portugal let some non-EU foreigners, most of them from former colonies, vote in some elections, while Italy, Germany and Austria share France's more restrictive current approach.
To France's ruling right, allowing a foreign and largely Muslim constituency to influence local policy would usher in halal meals at school cafeterias and women-only days at municipal swimming pools, controversial issues they say endanger the nation's secular tradition and which have knee-jerk resonance with far-right voters. (...)
Posted December 9th, 2011 by pk
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