Expats in Canada hold their noses
Some French citizens in Montreal say they will back the ‘least bad option’
MONTREAL— During the first round of voting in the French presidential election two weeks ago, the sidewalks and cafés in Outremont, home to the city’s only voting station for expatriates, had all the flavours and accents of a typical Parisian arrondissement.
But the Montreal neighbourhood also had lineups that stretched out the doors of a stately private school that served as the voting station, along the street out front and around several corners.
In all, 23,431 French citizens showed up to cast their ballots in Montreal from thousands of kilometres away, a number that overloaded volunteers and forced the polls to remain open until11p.m. that Saturday to accommodate as many people as possible.
With the candidates now whittled from 11 down to just two — the centrist favourite, Emmanuel Macron, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right Front National — the second round of voting for French expats that takes place this weekend still has several looming unknowns.
One is whether the changes being put in place by the French consulate in Montreal — the de facto French capital in North America — will alleviate the interminable wait.
The other is whether forecasts in advance of the Saturday vote will prove accurate: Of all the Canadian cities where consular officials have arranged for voting booths, only Vancouver is not expecting rain.
“This time, people are very interested and people are voting out of conviction. Even those who have decided not to vote are doing it out of conviction,” said Roland Lescure, who left his prestigious job as chief investment officer of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the province’s main investment fund, to become one of Macron’s main organizers in Montreal. “It’s not political disinterest.” Less than half of the 1.3-million French expats eligible to cast a ballot for the country’s next president voted in the first-round election. The nearly 34,000 who did so in Montre
“It disgusts me to cast a ballot for Emmanuel Macron. I’m doing it in part to prevent the physical violence that people would suffer under Marine Le Pen.”
JEAN LATERNI A STUDENT FROM BORDEAUX
al, Quebec City, Toronto, Vancouver and Moncton, left little doubt that Macron is their man. Some back the 39-year-old former minister of the economy out of conviction. Others are voting to block Le Pen and her National Front’s anti-immigration and French-first policies.
But it’s clear that outside the country’s borders, the woman cast as the undoing of France’s famous motto, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” doesn’t have anywhere near the same draw as she does on French territory.
Back home it’s a more complicated story. Most pundits predict a Macron win when the votes are counted on Sunday. But first-round voters in France were cooler on the front-runner than their expat counterparts, giving him just 24 per cent of the vote, and more enthusiastic toward Le Pen, who won just over 21per cent of the ballots.
That result has put enormous pressure onto the supporters of the other presidential candidates — pressure that can be felt an ocean away by those like Jean Laterni, a 21-year-old from Bordeaux attending university in Montreal.
Laterni counts himself as part of the leftist movement led by JeanLuc Mélenchon, known as les insoumis (“the rebels”).
They object to the way that politics has been practiced for generations in France, and Mélenchon famously refused to urge his supporters to give Macron their vote.
Instead, in an online consultation, he proposed three options to supporters: spoil the second-round ballot; stay home on voting day; or vote Macron. Backing the Front National leader was not even an option given consideration.
Nearly two-thirds of the Mélenchon followers who took part in the consultation said they would stay home or spoil their ballot, which puts Laterni in the minority.
“It disgusts me to cast a ballot for Emmanuel Macron,” Laterni said. “I’m doing it in part to prevent the physical violence that people would suffer under Marine Le Pen.”
Speaking just before Wednesday’s final presidential debate between the two candidates, Pierre-Jean Darres predicted there would not be so many protest ballots as have been predicted in a contest that many would never have predicted.
“I can’t predict it, but I don’t think spoiled ballots will represent a massive number of the votes,” said Darres, who came to Montreal as a student and has called the city home for 10 years.
“But if they do, it will send a message that has to be taken into consideration.” While Darres counts himself among Les Republicains, the centreright party represented by former French prime minister François Fillon in the first-round vote, he said he has decided to vote for Macron over Le Pen.
“After going through the two platforms none appeal to me 100 per cent, but as we say when we’re choosing between two things, I’m going for the least bad option.”