Both were among experts consulted by MP Léa Balage El Mariki, who has made recent efforts to change the law to allow the vote to all foreigners.
'Local life is important for everyone'
Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, an emerita director of research
with CNRS specialising in migration, said she had "renewed hope" when Ms Balage El Mariki's law was sceduled for debate this month.
"I have campaigned for the foreigners’ vote myself both as an academic and citizen, but now feel it’s been buried for a while."
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"Local life is important for everyone, whether they're foreign or not. So the current situation really excludes them from that. It's really making them outsiders," she said.
Progress may now depend on the outcome of the presidential elections, she said.
She said opponents to the law, on the right and far-right and some centrists, had “stuffed the
proposed law with amendments” in a “deliberate” bid to stop it.
As a result, there was not enough time for it to be debated on the allotted day.
“Such a massive amount of criticism was directed against the
project, despite the fact, we shouldn’t forget, there are 15 EU countries out
of 27 who have already given the vote to foreign residents.
“The right to vote is a legitimate thing to ask for and
there have been other previous attempts - in the early 2000s and in François Mitterrand's presidential programme for example - but now the far-right is so powerful
they completely blocked the bill”.
Among countries which allow it, such as Denmark, Luxembourg,
Ireland or Spain, it typically requires a certain number of years’ residency,
and in some cases reciprocity.
Post-Brexit, England and Northern Ireland allow it
to UK, Irish and Commonwealth citizens, pre-Brexit EU citizen residents and
post-Brexit EU citizen residents if there is reciprocity (Wales and Scotland
allow it based on residency).
Dr Withol de Wenden said various historical, geopolitical and demographic factors come into play in each country's attitudes.
It would now take “a lot of tenacity” on behalf of
those in favour to get a law through in France, she said.
The climate here is now difficult, with the
far-right influencing political discourse ahead of the presidential
elections next year and causing debate to be “heated” around this.
She believes targeting municipal votes, as the bill that stalled in February proposes, is the best way, not
all ‘local’ elections (as proposed by another bill being put forward by an MP from far-left LFI).
She said polls show the French population is generally in favour of the idea.
"I think that at the local level, there are many people who see no problem with foreigners being better represented, because today there are a number of municipalities where they have been living for a very long time and they cannot express themselves, even though they are very much affected by the council's decisions.
"Also, the mayor's mandate is fragile if 30% of the population of his municipality cannot vote. And if parents do not vote, their children are unlikely to become active citizens who vote in elections, so it is all part of a whole."
She added: “As long as they are not part of the electorate, some
parties take advantage of this to discredit and insult foreigners – since they
are not voters, no one cares, so to speak."
She said foreign people living in France should not feel obliged to ask for French nationality, especially as some may have reasons, such as "a certain colonial resentment" felt by some Algerians, for not doing so.
It comes also as she said acquiring nationality has become "very difficult", especially since the level of French required was, as of this year, raised to B2, which is the level undergraduates are asked for to take a French-language degree.
"If you're a cleaner, you don't need the same level of French as someone who's a graduate. It makes no sense."
'There are some who would never accept it'
Jules Lepoutre, a public law and migration specialist at Nice Côte d’Azur university said: “I was quite surprised to see the question of the foreigners’ vote come to the forefront again because lately there have been efforts to contain them and to restrict their rights rather than to extend them.”
Jules Lepoutre
He said it was not, however, surprising to see politicians from the left give support, as it was the left which that had, since the late 1970s, raised this issue historically.
But, he doubted if even the Greens had been confident of getting Ms Balage El Mariky’s law passed in the Assemblée.
They had, perhaps, hoped to give a new tone to the political mood - "to raise debate on extending foreigners' rights, not just restricting them".
The idea of skipping a stage by bringing back the old, part-voted text had been intelligent, he said.
But, even where a proposed constitutional law is voted identically by both houses, it remains in the president’s power to refuse to call a referendum over it – and there is no evidence President Macron favours this.
He said the “liberal-oriented” Emmanuel Macron of 2017 may perhaps have been sympathetic, but there has been a toughening of attitudes in his political camp in his second mandate, and in particular in the last two years, as seen by the 2024 immigration law, which had created more demanding rules on residency cards and nationality.
He said the fact the Assemblée nationale's laws commission had adopted the law for debate was a first “temperature test” (as to whether the topic may be able to gain traction), and the vote in favour had been interesting to see.
“However, there are some on the right and far-right who would never accept it, so the key question now would be the attitude of the Renaissance - centrist - group," he said. "For the moment they have not really taken a stance.
“It’s not a proposition, in itself, that is shocking to liberals – especially as it’s something already functioning in the EU and widely supported by liberal and centrist groups in the EU itself.”
Asked about the idea of giving a vote in all local elections - including departmental and regional, as some supporters propose - Prof Lepoutre said in legal terms the strongest divide is between 'local' or 'national' elections, so the idea is not problematic legally.
However, there is an argument that the municipality, among these, is the elected body that is closest to the individual so it is perhaps the "most obvious" choice.
Prof Lepoutre said the idea had broad backing in the 1980s and may have seemed almost resolved after the Treaty of Maastricht opened up local voting to all EU foreigners.
However, Brexit had been a good illustration of the divide that still remains between EU foreigners and non-EU foreigners, which has been brought back to the fore by the new proposed laws.
He said one argument against opening up the vote to all foreigners may come from some in the pro-EU camp, who may feel that it would dilute one of the advantages of EU citizenship and that it should remain "a privilege reserved to Europeans, which is a testimony to their joint project and the construction of ever closer links".
As to conditions that may favour the change, he said it would take "the construction of political majorities placing the political cursor more on the side of equality and democracy - formations whose centre of gravity is more to the centre and left".
He said the left-right split over the issue is partly explained by their different attitudes towards who should naturally form part of the "political community".
For the left, it is based around the idea that by living in France and being socialised here, you gradually become part of the political community as well. Some on the left recognise a kind of "citizenship of residence", that does not have to mean French nationality.
For the right, it is more linked to blood-relationship ties.
"In other words, it's your family culture, your integration in a French family, that makes you a future French citizen.
"And, lacking that, what can make you French is naturalisation, but a naturalisation founded on demanding criteria, not only with regard to knowledge of France, but adhesion to its values as well and mastering the language."
Prof Lepoutre is the author of book on the topic of French citizenship, Nationalité et souveraineté (Dalloz, 2020)
