The Expatriate Vote in the French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2012: A Case of Unintended Consequences

In the 2012 legislative elections, 11 new deputies were elected representing newly created constituencies for the French expatriate community. The Right-wing Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) that initiated this legislation expected to create a clutch of safe seats for its own party, because expatriate voters have, since extra-territorial voting was introduced in 1981, always given massive support to the Right. Yet although this trend was maintained for the presidential election, the outcome was unexpectedly reversed for the legislative elections, when only 3 of the 11 new seats were won by the UMP. This article explains the background to these elections and analyses their results.