Before voting – in person or by proxy – these voters will have had to register on the consulate’s electoral list. “Compared to 2017, there are around 5,000 additional people registered, while the number of French people established here remains rather stable, even slightly up. People always tend to update this kind of formality just before the elections”, continues Bruno Jean-Etienne.
Once on this electoral list, the French in Belgium were able to receive campaign messages from the various candidates. Some years, presidential candidates travel in person to Belgium to campaign. In 2017, the socialist Benoît Hamon had filled the hall of the Madeleine, in Brussels. This year, no tenor made the trip to Belgium. . A few second knives came, accompanied by representatives of French people living abroad.
For the rest, it is essentially by sending e-mails that the parties have tried to convince voters who are rather favorable to the current president. “Overall, the French abroad, and in particular those in Belgium, are far from the extremes, even if this vote tends to increase, especially along the border.“, notes Bruno Jean-Etienne, of the Association of French people living abroad. Overall, the French in Belgium “are liberal, progressive and above all very pro-European: some work at the Commission or in the European institutions and all of them benefit from European law in their everyday life anyway. This obviously plays in favor of Emmanuel Macron “, further analyzes Bruno Jean-Etienne.
In 2017, the French in Belgium were just over 46,500 to have cast their ballot in the ballot box, i.e. a participation rate of 56%, one of the highest for French people living abroad. The candidate Macron had arrived well ahead of the count, with 35.5% of the votes, ahead of François Fillon (22.5%), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (20.4%) and the socialist Benoît Hamon (9.5%) . Marine Le Pen only came in 5th position, with 7.3% of the vote. Two weeks later, the French in Belgium had once again largely voted for the candidate of La République en Marche, granting him more than 88.5% of the vote against the far-right candidate, while in France, Emmanuel Macron had certainly beaten Marine Le Pen but on a tighter score (66%-34%).
“Macron has always had a very social democratic policy. He places Europe, industry, recovery before redistribution, which is still not the majority current on the left” but which can seduce the French from abroad, whether they live in Belgium or elsewhere, confirms for his part Christophe Sente, from the Center for the Study of Political Life at the ULB.
Will the outgoing president do as well as he did five years ago with these particular voters, after a five-year term marked by the crisis of the yellow vests and that of the Covid but also by the decline of the traditional parties, left and right? right ?
In two weeks, these French people from Belgium will find the same polling stations for the second round of the presidential election.