No Risk

For Nicolas Sarkozy only French nationals should be allowed to vote in an election. And yet his Interior Minister Claude Guéant is all for the voting rights of foreigners. At least he claims that is his personal preference.

How will Sarkozy resolve the conflict between what he secretly wants (voting rights for foreigners) and what he is duty-bound to say, now that he is up against an ever-more popular Marine Le Pen?

Marine Le Pen tells us in a communiqué:

If Nicolas Sarkozy today regards the Socialist proposal to grant voting rights to foreigners as "risky", it is above all his own convictions that are risky. During the decade of the 90's he stood opposed to such an extension of voting rights, while in 2001 and 2005 he publicly supported the measure. And now, he has again rejected it. It's always by the barometer of electoral strategies that Sarkozy makes his determinations.

This latest swing, coming a few months from the presidential election, is obviously a campaign posture that will fool nobody. Worse, Nicolas Sarkozy made use of his speech to reveal his solution in a few words: if foreigners want to vote, they have only to become French!

And that is how, with one sentence, Sarkozy shows himself to be more liberal ("laxiste") even that the Left.

Marine Le Pen, candidate for the presidency, calls on the French people to discard together the UMP and the PS, both of whom conceal behind their rhetoric the same fondness for immigration. Nicolas Sarkozy has just confirmed today that he sees French nationality as a simple administrative formality.

Only Marine Le Pen thinks clearly: the right to vote must be reserved for the French people, and French nationality must become a source of pride once again, granted only exceptionally to foreigners when they demonstrate their love for France and their complete assimilation into our country.

Here is the complete sentence uttered by Sarkozy on Wednesday November 23, before an audience of 3000 mayors. From L'Express:

"If a person of foreign nationality who lives in our country, who respects our laws and our values, wants to participate in the political choices of our nation, then Ladies and Gentlemen, one path is open to him, this path is access to French nationality," he stressed to applause from a hall largely won over to his cause.

Below a poster from 2009 from the Comité Citoyen pour une Europe Solidaire (citizen's committee for European solidarity)