Thursday, December 15, 2011

This house would extend the right to vote in French municipal elections to non-EU residents - closing speeches

Third proposing speech
Dear ladies and gentlemen, as I write this post, our House is way ahead the opposers in the poll. I would like to show you why you should not change your mind by outlining our House's handling of the topic, oscillating between tradition and modernity, and by pointing out that the Opposers have only one flawed argument they are repeating again and again against us. [...]

by GM

Third opposing speech
Ladies and Gentlemen, as the third and last speaker of my team, I would like to sum up the few clash points raised by the debate and to clarify my team’s position. 

Everyone agrees on this: France is currently undergoing a social and economic crisis, as many countries in the world do. There is an important need of fraternity because living conditions might become a little less good for a while. The first main clash point was about how to create this needed unity. [...]

by BF

Third proposing speech
Dear ladies and gentlemen, as I write this post, our House is way ahead the opposers in the poll. I would like to show you why you should not change your mind by outlining our House's handling of the topic, oscillating between tradition and modernity, and by pointing out that the Opposers have only one flawed argument they are repeating again and again against us.

Our House has two leading arguments. First, the argument of tradition, inherited from the XVIIIth century. As the firsts American citizens said "No taxation without representation", this House believe that certain duties in a muncipality lead to certain rights such as vote. AJ has pretty well pointed out that, since foreigners belonged to a local community, they had the right to participate in this community. Nevertheless, we do not extend this argument to the national scale because you have to show an interest in the nation, and thus obtain the citizenship, to become a real part of this nation. On the whole, our House advocated for democracy.

Second, the argument of modernity leads our views. The way politics is handled nowadays, with the French state giving more and more liberties to the communities, and thus recognizing their role as a "polis" into the State reveals the modern role of the city. This enforces our position because the State recognize itself there is a difference between the decisions he makes, for and in the name of the nation, and the decisions cities make, for their inhabitants. 

So far our position is at the edge between tradition and modernity : we recognize the modern organizations, i.e. cities, and the traditional rights, i.e. democracy. And the conjunction of these two principles implies the right of vote to foreigners in their communes.

On the contrary, the Opposer’s House argument could be summarized in one only word: nation. Foreigners voting ? It would endanger the unity of the nation, says RV. Foreigners deciding for their city ? It would be the same as if they were deciding for the whole nation, argues GL. Most of their arguments reformulate the idea that nation is the only valuable scale of power. They believe that citizenship is strongly correlated to the nation, and cannot be divided in smaller parts, following the real division of power in today’s France. But this House, following MP in the commentaries, states that citizenship and nation are not the same and that a witty point of view on voting right should deal with the first, which is a rational concept rather than the second, mostly emotional.

Finally, opposing the opposite House, this House believes there are many scales of power between the individual and the nation, among those municipalities, departments and regions. The nation is neither the beginning nor the end. These different powers are recognized by the modern words, and the people who belong to them, even if they are foreigners, may decide for them.

Thank you for reading this whole debate and vote for us !

GM

Third opposing speech
Ladies and Gentlemen, as the third and last speaker of my team, I would like to sum up the few clash points raised by the debate and to clarify my team’s position. 

Everyone agrees on this: France is currently undergoing a social and economic crisis, as many countries in the world do. There is an important need of fraternity because living conditions might become a little less good for a while. The first main clash point was about how to create this needed unity. As RV said, unity appears with a feeling of belonging to a group through common values and interests. The values the French people can gather around are not so intensively shared with foreigners and this is pretty normal, due to cultural differences. It is true that the integration process of a minority goes through providing it with the same rights as the whole population. Yet it takes a lot of time and it would be a mistake for the government to think that giving foreigners the right to vote at local elections would help getting out of the crisis. In fact, it could even lead to a quite negative result: the majority might think the government is interested in a minority’s needs whereas the whole country needs to be strictly guided. 

*It is not the right moment!* French people are still the main economic and social force of the country and the government should make anything to reassure and help them in such a situation. We can’t help it: the world isn’t (yet) entirely globalized and people still think they should be cared of more than foreigners living with them. This issue is pretty independent from which right you give to foreigners: it could be the right to vote at any election or any other privilege, the time’s not right. Moreover, the capitalism crisis is partly due to the fact that more and more historically national firms are now held by foreigners who don’t have any sentimental vision of it: they tend to sell parts of it there and there, to offshore, creating unemployment and great economic losses. People need to reunite around their interest for their own country for a while. The climate is so and the crisis is here: we must act and fight in this context and we can’t hope there will be any sudden integration of all minorities in the short term.

The second main clash point was about the sense of giving foreigners only partial responsibilities. GL was right on that point: this law will create a second-class citizenship. We could be criticized on that argument because this second-class citizenship already exists for foreigners coming from the EU. Well, as RV and the whole team thought, the French government doesn’t have a lack of confidence in foreigners who have been living in France for a certain time. In a more economically and socially stable conjuncture, we would rather grant foreigners a right to vote at any election. This would probably need a revision of conditions, like the amount of time that has to be spent in France before being granted the right, but it looks more logical to us. BL said that, in contrary, changes should be made step by step. The idea is good: sudden changes might not be accepted by the majority of the population. Yet, would you take a first step giving all foreigners a right to vote, which is one great symbol France has fought for during the Revolution? Most of the foreigners we’re talking about (and especially you BL, since you wrote a lot about integration) come to France with very little money, hoping to find a job and better life conditions. France’s duty, if those people are accepted by the immigration policy, is to offer them normal integration possibilities through scholarship, health and welfare system, decent accommodation, etc. You don’t give a right to vote at local elections to people whose access to all public services is bad. There is more to do on a higher, national scale before this right becomes the point. 

In conclusion, this house has no problem with the principle of giving a suffrage to foreigners who are resident in France. We would just *postpone* the decision because of the economic and social conjuncture. Our goal would be to reach good integration of all foreigners through better access to scholarship, health and the whole social system in “difficult districts” (where the main problem is) before eventually granting a right to vote at any election to all foreigners with revised conditions.

Be reasonable. Vote for us.

BF

2 comments:

  1. @ BF

    I don't understand how giving the right to vote to non EU foreigners would create "second-hand" citizens... The opposers should have proposed more convincing arguments.

    As MP pointed out, taking part in local community decisions has nothing to do with adhering to a nation's values and thus naturalisation.

    I think the opposers are seeking an easy way out by proposing "facilitating naturalisation"...

    One has nothing to do with the other!

    VB

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Moreover, the capitalism crisis is partly due to the fact that more and more historically national firms are now held by foreigners who don’t have any sentimental vision of it: they tend to sell parts of it there and there, to offshore, creating unemployment and great economic losses."
    "Most of the foreigners we’re talking about (and especially you BL, since you wrote a lot about integration) come to France with very little money, hoping to find a job and better life conditions"

    You are clearly in contradiction with the very principles of the Fifth Republic. So your idea of equality is that poor immigrants should serve as scapegoats for millionnaire foreigners who sell parts of french companies here and there. The latter ruins the french economy and as a consequent the former shall not vote...?

    "There is more to do on a higher, national scale before this right becomes the point."

    I don't understand your point: policies are usually implemented the other way around!

    VB

    ReplyDelete