FRANCE: Ethnic voters could hold the key to the French elections

With the number of minority voters in France numbering more than the difference between the second and third candidates in the 2002 presidential first round, the ethnic vote could well swing this year's election. Voter registrations have jumped in France's multi-ethnic suburbs and with the election in just over a week away still too close to call, minority voters may hold the key to the presidency. Patrick Lozes, head of the black pressure group CRAN, said the sheer numbers of France's 1.5 million voters of black African and North African Arab origin could decide the race in which all 12 candidates are white. "There are almost two million black voters in France, and I would like to remind you that there were only 200,000 votes separating Jean-Marie Le Pen, who qualified for the second round, from Lionel Jospin, who didn't qualify," Lozes said. In 2002, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen stunned France by grabbing second place behind President Jacques Chirac in the first round, pushing Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the race. Electoral lists have increased in particular in several suburbs hit by 2005 riots, according to official figures, thanks in part to a voter registration drive by opponents of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy. The former interior minister's pledge to clean crime-ridden estates with a power hose and rid them of the "scum" poisoning life there stoked animosity towards him, especially in areas with a high ethnic minority population. Polls show Sarkozy leads Socialist Segolene Royal and centrist Francois Bayrou ahead of the first round on April 22. Polls credit Royal with more than 50 percent support among voters of black African and North African origin, a figure well above the national average, compared to 19 percent for Bayrou and just 11 percent for Sarkozy. Interior Ministry figures show voter lists up 8.5 percent in the past year in Seine-Saint-Denis, birthplace of the 2005 riots that were the worst in France for 40 years. "You can see today that in the suburbs there are a lot of young people who are desperate, so desperate that they say they want to blow the system apart by voting for one of the extreme candidates," Lozes said. "It's extraordinary, so you can see the desperation there, and this shows that those who have the political responsibility today are incapable, I repeat incapable, of providing concrete answers," he added. "I am afraid that the only candidate who can really represent foreigners is Jose Bove," said Jamila Khaldi, a resident of St Denis in the suburbs of Paris which has a very large ethnic population. "The people in St Denis are French, one says that they are from Maghreb or from goodness knows where, but in principle they are French, and all they want is to have a chance like all the other French people," Gelggeli Abdelmann said. "What are people in St Denis looking for? They are looking for someone to hold their hand out to them," he added. Unlike Royal and Bayrou, and even National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Sarkozy left it late to campaign on the streets of France's ethnically mixed suburbs due to fears of unrest, leaving him open to charges that he can not lead the nation if he is "persona non grata" in sensitive areas of France. His notorious "scum" barb which he called rioters could yet come back to haunt him. "It's good that he is finally going to visit the banlieue, it would also be good if he went to Argenteuil, it would be good if he would stop stigmatising young people, and it would be good if he would take a look at his language," Lozes said about Sarkozy. "It would be good if he would recognise that saying he is going to clean up the banlieue with a jet spray, that these are terrible words. If you are black and you hear such expressions, then you understand that they want to 'whiten' you," Lozes added. In order to raise awareness of France's diversity, the black pressure group has deployed hi-tech graphics to put a different colour on the vote. Set to a soulful gospel rendition of the French national anthem, the presidential front-runners Nicolas Sarkozy, Segolene Royal, Francois Bayrou and Jean-Marie Le Pen, are depicted on 10-second video clips slowly changing from white to black, which it has posted the four videos on numerous websites. While the sight of far-right leader Le Pen transforming into a bearded coloured pensioner is meant to be funny, Lozes says its message is not. Referring to the fact that even the Socialist candidate is touching on the issue of nationalism, by saying that she thinks all French people should have a French flag at home, the head of the black pressure group says there is not just a danger of Sarkozy approaching Le Pen's ideas. "I see a real danger that the 2007 presidential campaign is a malicious one, a campaign of rampant nationalism, a campaign where candidates ask people to carry flags. I think that that is very dangerous, I think that quite frankly that there is a rampant 'Le Penism' of attitudes." France does not keep statistics on its ethnic make-up but CRAN believes anywhere between 2.5-and 5.0 million black people live in France out of a total population of some 60 million. In a survey released in January, more than half of France's black residents said they suffered from discrimination.

ITN Source | April 13, 2007

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