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By Guillaume Lavallee
French citizens in North America
voted in large numbers Saturday, a day before their compatriots back
home cast ballots to choose France’s next president amid intense
interest in the hotly contested election.
Hundreds of people were still
queuing up to vote Saturday afternoon on a brilliant spring day at a
polling station in the posh Outremont district in Montreal, which is
home to the largest number of French voters outside Europe.
“It is definitely the first
time there are so many people. I can’t believe it,” said
Jacqueline Orquin, a medical researcher at the University of
Montreal who has lived here since 1960 and has voted in every
election.
A record number of French
citizens in overseas territories and expatriates were registered to
vote Saturday. They were voting for the first time one day before
their compatriots back home to avoid going into voting booths just
as results emerge in France.
About 820,000 French citizens are
registered to vote abroad compared with 385,000 in 2002, according
to the foreign ministry. Another 120,000 were to vote by proxy,
meaning someone in France would vote on their behalf.
Hundreds of thousands more are
registered to vote in French overseas territories, including the
Caribbean island departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique as well as
French Guiana in South America.
Tens of millions of French voters
will cast their ballots in mainland France Sunday, choosing between
a diverse field of 12 candidates from the political Left, Right and
Center to succeed Jacques Chirac.
Right-wing candidate Nicolas
Sarkozy led opinion polls for the first round, closely followed by
tight races between socialist Segolene Royal, centrist Francois
Bayrou and far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. The two top
vote-getters will face off in a May 6 second-round election.
Residents of France’s tiny
island territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off Canada’s
Atlantic coast kicked off the election Saturday, followed by voters
in the overseas territories and expatriates across the Americas.
About half of the more than
100,000 French citizens living across Canada are registered to vote.
Some 34,000 are registered to vote in Montreal compared to 12,000 in
2002, when Le Pen shocked France by finishing second in the first
round before being trounced by Chirac in the runoff.
Voting at the French Embassy in
Ottawa, Francoise Obissier, who has lived in Canada for 37 years,
said it was the most important election for the future of France.
“It could rock France,” she
said, adding that she had voted for Royal.
About 75,000 people are
registered to vote in the United States, a twofold increase from
five years ago. More than 250,000 French nationals are estimated to
live in the United States.
In Washington, scores went to the
French consulate to vote in the morning—too many to handle at one
point for election workers who even complained “we can’t catch
up.”
French citizens also went to the
polls across Latin America.
In Argentina, home to the largest
number of French registered voters in Latin America with 12,000,
four voting rooms were set up at the French Embassy in Buenos Aires.
In neighboring Brazil, the 11,000
French voters could cast their ballots in eight cities, from the
picturesque beach city of Rio de Janeiro to the megalopolis of Sao
Paulo and the capital Brasilia.
Thousands more headed to voting
booths across the region, from Chile to Colombia and Mexico, where
classrooms in the French lyceum were converted into voting booths.
The overseas ballots will be
counted Saturday evening, but the French foreign ministry will only
unveil the results after voting ends in France Sunday.
 --AFP
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