EU citizens: your right to vote in France

[Clair]

Who can vote:

As an EU citizen living permanently in France,

you have the right to vote

for your French member of the European Parliament (MEP) and at the municipal elections, provided that:

• you are over 18
• you have not been deprived of your voting rights in your
  country of origin

How to register:

You need to provide:

• a completed registration form (see below)
• a proof of identity (valid passport or resident card)

• a proof of residence (copy of taxe d'habitation or recent EDF bill for example)

There are two lists held for EU citizens and you must be listed on both lists to be able to vote for both elections.

Liste complémentaire pour les élections des représentants Français au Parlement européen (Download the form HERE)

Once registered

on this list, you lose the right to vote for MEP elections in your

country of origin.

Liste complémentaire pour les élections municipales (Download the form HERE)

You can vote in the commune in which you pay your taxe d'habitation.

When to register:

You can register any time during the year and the lists are revised and updated up to 31st December. You will be given or sent a voting card.

More details (in French) HERE

[5-element]

Way to go, Clair.....You tell them!!!! Hear hear!

[mint]

I know us Brits have a bad reputation for not turning up to vote at elections and that you French are much more political than we are but, Clair and 5-element, here's one person (2 included the OH) who have already filled in both forms ready for next March or whenever![:D]

[5-element]

Bravo Sweet 17, for being one (two) of the people one can rely on!!![;-)]

Let's hope there are plenty of others  who will thus achieve full integration....

[Bugsy]

Printed out and ready to go......................thanks Clair.

[Suze01]

[quote user="5-element"]

Bravo Sweet 17, for being one (two) of the people one can rely on!!![;-)]

Let's hope there are plenty of others  who will thus achieve full integration....

[/quote]

I can go one further (as can TonyFDordgne) as we are both candidates for our municipal councils [;-)]

[5-element]

Ouuuh, lovely,  it  is  great to see immigrants take such an active part in the life of their community.

Congratulations to you all, you made my day![:)]

[Val_2]

[quote user="Lisleoise"][quote user="5-element"]

Bravo Sweet 17, for being one (two) of the people one can rely on!!![;-)]

Let's hope there are plenty of others  who will thus achieve full integration....

[/quote]

I can go one further (as can TonyFDordgne) as we are both candidates for our municipal councils [;-)]
[/quote]

Don't forget me as I will be standing for my second mandat after 7 years of by next march.

[Valleyboy]

[quote user="Lisleoise"][quote user="5-element"]

Bravo Sweet 17, for being one (two) of the people one can rely on!!![;-)]

Let's hope there are plenty of others  who will thus achieve full integration....

[/quote]

I can go one further (as can TonyFDordgne) as we are both candidates for our municipal councils [;-)]

[/quote]

Our Maire has asked if he can put my name on his liste, too.

[Suze01]

Sorry Val, should have mentioned you too.  Congrats Valleyboy.

[Punch]

Thanks Clair  - We registered and voted in the last elections 6/7 years ago, so do we need to register again for the next elections in March 2008, or will we recieve our voting card automatically  ?

[Suze01]

As long as you haven't moved communes then your registration will still be valid.  I checked mine a few weeks ago and I was told that it is not necessary to re-register each year unless there is a change of communes.  Worth checking with your Mairie though.

[Val_2]

We had our voting cards in the post weeks ago now so if yours have not arrived, check it out as previously non-french nationals HAD to register EVERY year again before Dec 31st.

[krusty]

We registered today , very easy , was told we would get our voting cards in February .

[Jess]

Hi All

Do you have to be a french citizen to be on someone's list?

Jess

[Val_2]

No but you should be a tax paying resident and you have to be invited to be on that list by a member of the current council.

[oscar]

we got our voting cards from our Maire today.  He told us about the election on Sunday for our village council but he didn't know whether we could vote in the cantonale election the following week.  Does anyone know?

What's the Maire's list by the way?

[Suze01]

[quote user="oscar"]What's the Maire's list by the way?[/quote]

The Maire's Liste is his team of people putting themselves forward for the places on the council.  Normally a liste will be = to the number of places on the council.  Then there may or may not be opposing listes.  It depends on the size of your town/village on how it works.  Have a look on the [url=http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/elections-municipales/0,,3706147,00-municipales-mode-emploi-.html]TF1 website[/url] where it explains it clearly.

BTW, our voting cards should arrive today having been posted a couple of days ago.  The 1er adjoint told me the other week that they wait until february was over so that anyone turning 18 would get included in the distribution.

[Will]

I like the bit that says "dans les communes de moins de 2500 habitants, il est possible de voter pour les personnes qui ne sont pas candidats".

I know what it means - we have only about 40 voters in our commune (including les anglais - the 'offical' register is smaller) so that's how it works here, no lists as such, anybody can let it be known that they are standing then, in the first round at least, voters can write their name on the paper if they support them.

But I can imagine that anybody who wanted to be perverse could arrange the election of Mickey Mouse, Adolf Hitler or a Jedi Knight to the local council. Though being fictitious, dead, or non-taxpayers they most likely wouldn't be allowed to take up their seats. [;-)]

[oscar]

[quote user="Will"]

I like the bit that says "dans les communes de moins de 2500 habitants, il est possible de voter pour les personnes qui ne sont pas candidats".

I know what it means - we have only about 40 voters in our commune (including les anglais - the 'offical' register is smaller) so that's how it works here, no lists as such, anybody can let it be known that they are standing then, in the first round at least, voters can write their name on the paper if they support them.

But I can imagine that anybody who wanted to be perverse could arrange the election of Mickey Mouse, Adolf Hitler or a Jedi Knight to the local council. Though being fictitious, dead, or non-taxpayers they most likely wouldn't be allowed to take up their seats. [;-)]

[/quote]

Ah that explains the other bit that he said.  He told us that we could write anyone else's name on our voting papers if we wanted to, which didn't make sense to me and I presumed I had misunderstood.

[opas]

We received our voting papers yesterday, Now I am really confused as I had a particular person in mind to vote for sue to his statement of family values etc.........then today I bought our local paper and there was photo in there of his equipe, one is on a charge for assaulting Mr O and his wife is named too......she regularly gives her kids such a crack I am supprised he hasn`t got brain damage!

[Suze01]

Simple, just cross off the name that you don't want. 

[opas]

I understand that bit, but if there are only 2 lists that have these 2 offending peoples names crossed out  WILL IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE? or do I have to go on a campain of my own to tout up other voters to cross them off too?

I really do feel strongly on this.

[Suze01]

You can cross off as many names as you want to.  As long as you don't exceed the number of seats available that's OK.  If there are two listes then depending on how everyone votes then the resulting council can be made up of a panachage of the two listes (ie: mixed) and so if enough people cross off these names they may not win a place - but it does depend on voting as a whole because if one liste gets 50%+ of the votes the entire liste wins. Complicated but possible!  If you feel really strongly then I would speak to as many people as possible so that they also cross off these names.

[oscar]

I'm still confused by all this!  Does that mean that if there is someone on the Maire's list that he has sent round that I don't want to vote for, and mostother people in the village didn't want him in either (this is all hypothetical of course) but the Maire's liste got 60% of the vote, this man would get elected anyway?  Or if, for example, his name got crossed off by a lot of people and someone who was standing alone got more votes than him, would that independent get put onto the council in place of the Maire's choice who wasn't popular in the commune?  Confused?  I AM.

Also, we've received our voting cards and now we've had two copies of the list from the Maire (and in fact two slips from a couple of independants) what do we do with all this paperwork on Sunday?  If I want to vote for everyone on the Maire's list - they're a nice enough bunch, what do I do?