Eighth constituency for French residents overseas

The Eighth constituency for French residents overseas (huitième circonscription des Français établis hors de France) is one of eleven constituencies each electing one representative of French citizens overseas to the French National Assembly.

8th constituency for French residents overseas
French National Assembly
constituency
Deputy
 Meyer Habib
UDI
Departmentnone (overseas residents)
Cantonsnone
Registered voters144,505

This constituency elected its first ever representative at the 2012 French legislative election.

Area

It covers all French citizens living in the following eight countries: Cyprus, Greece, the Holy See (Vatican), Israel, Italy, Malta, San Marino, and Turkey. As of New Year's Day 2011, it contained 144,505 registered French citizens - of which 78,748 in Israel, 46,554 in Italy, and just 17 in the Holy See.[1][2][3]

France does not recognise a State of Palestine, but French residents in Gaza and the West Bank, counted as residents of Israel, are entitled to vote. There were 229 registered French citizens in Gaza or the West Bank at the creation of the constituency, and a polling station was opened in Ramallah.[4]

Deputies
ElectionMemberParty
2012 Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou PS
2013 by-election Meyer Habib UDI
2017

Election results

2017
Candidate Label First round Second round
Votes % Votes %
Florence Drory REM 4,150 36.73 5,825 42.14
Meyer Habib UDI 4,013 35.51 7,998 57.86
Hélène Panoussis FI 834 7.38
Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou DIV 667 5.90
Nil Delahaye ECO 563 4.98
Nathalie Jorge Laick FN 316 2.80
Benjamin Djiane PS 241 2.13
Raphaël Destremau DVD 139 1.23
Anne Sabourin PCF 89 0.79
David Acunzo DIV 87 0.77
Jean-Yves Metayer-Robbes ECO 50 0.44
Barbara Pascarel DIV 45 0.40
Christophe Cesetti DIV 38 0.34
Mathilde Cameirao DIV 27 0.24
Jacques Neno DIV 21 0.19
Frédéric Chaouat DIV 12 0.11
Denis Bensimon DVD 8 0.07
Votes 11,300 100.00 13,823 100.00
Valid votes 11,300 99.01 13,823 97.34
Blank votes 41 0.36 288 2.03
Null votes 72 0.63 90 0.63
Turnout 11,413 9.40 14,201 11.70
Abstentions 109,986 90.60 107,185 88.30
Registered voters 121,399 121,386
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Candidates

The list of candidates was officially finalised on 14 May. There were ten candidates:[5][6]

The Union for a Popular Movement chose Valérie Hoffenberg, a former president of the American Jewish Committee in France, as its candidate. Alexandre Bezardin was her deputy (suppléant).[7]

The Socialist Party chose Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou, a legal consultant and resident of Tel Aviv. Her deputy (suppléant) was Philippe Hébrard, a resident of Rome.[8]

The Left Front chose Michèle Parravicini, a teacher of Italian origin. A resident of Greece, she had also lived in Italy and lived and worked in Turkey. Her deputy (suppléant) was Guillaume Mariel.[9]

Europe Écologie–The Greens chose Pierre Jestin, a resident of Milan, with Mélanie Lacide as his deputy (suppléante).[10][11]

The National Front did not present a candidate of its own, but endorsed Huguette Livernault-Lévy, of the small, new far-right party Sovereignty, Independence and Freedoms, which was allied to the National Front as part of the "Marine blue gathering" (rassemblement bleu Marine). Florian Dufait was her deputy.[6]

The Radical Party of the Left chose Corinne Rouffi. Of dual French and Israeli citizenship, she pledged to support the interests of French residents "on both sides of the wall", in Israel and Palestine. She also promised to support the accession of Turkey to the European Union, "with the recognition of the Kurdish people and their autonomous status".[12] Adnan Kaya was her deputy.

Solidarity and Progress, the French branch of the LaRouche movement, was represented by Julien Lemaître, with Éric Sauze as her deputy.[6]

Philippe Karsenty was a candidate of the miscellaneous right, endorsed by the Liberal Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Party, although he was a member of neither. Éric Veron was his deputy.[13]

Gil Taïeb, who defined himself as a "militant Zionist", stood as an "independent humanist centrist", focusing solely on the French community in Israel. Avi Zana was his deputy.[14]

Guy Fitoussi was an independent candidate, with Arié Bengenou as his deputy.[6]

Results

As in other constituencies, turnout in the first round was low. It was at its lowest in Israel (7.6%), and highest in Turkey (just 24%). Socialist candidate Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou finished first, ahead of a divided right with strong dissident candidates. Pierre Jestin also obtained a good result for the Greens (10.5% overall; 15.9% in Italy). Poznanski-Benhamou finished first in every country, except in Israel, where independent candidates Philippe Karsenty and Gil Taïeb came first and second respectively, and in Malta where she came second to Valérie Hoffenberg (UMP) by just five votes.[15][16]

The results in Israel (with an extremely low turnout) were notably different from the rest of the constituency. Gil Taïeb was standing as an independent right-wing candidate with an exclusive focus on Israel, promising to defend its interests along right-wing lines, while Philippe Karsenty, also an independent right-wing candidate, was already known for his campaign to support Israel's image abroad.[17][18] Karsenty finished first in Israel with 30.40% of the vote, while Taïeb obtained 26.36%, and Poznanski-Benhamou 19.66%. Hoffenberg was relegated to fourth place with 19.26%. In Italy, however, Karsenty finished fifth, and obtained fairly few votes in other countries. Taïeb, finishing eighth in Italy, obtained only a handful of votes outside Israel. (In Turkey, Taïeb obtained only 10 votes (1.00%), just 3 votes in Cyprus (1.46%), and just 1 vote in Malta (1.14%).)[15]

Legislative Election 2012: Overseas residents 8 - 2nd round
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
PS Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou 7,584 55.88 -
UMP Valérie Hoffenberg 5,987 44.12 -
Turnout 13,965 12.77% -
Void election result Swing n/a
Legislative Election 2012: Overseas residents 8 - 1st round[15]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
PS Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou 4400 30.50 -
UMP Valérie Hoffenberg 3202 22.20 -
DVD Philippe Karsenty 2084 14.45 -
EELV Pierre Jestin 1515 10.50 -
Independent Gil Taïeb 1431 9.92 -
FG Michèle Parravicini 911 6.32 -
SIEL Huguette Livernault-Lévy 542 3.76 -
SP Julien Lemaître 159 1.10 -
PRG Corinne Rouffi 108 0.75 -
Independent Guy Fitoussi 72 0.50 -
Turnout 14626 13.37 n/a

Subsequent annulment

In February 2013, the election of Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou was annulled by the Constitutional Council, due to irregularities in the funding of her electoral campaign. She was barred from standing for public office for a period of one year. Defeated candidates Gil Taïeb and Philippe Karsenty were also barred from standing for public office for a year, for the same reason.[19]

2013 by-election

The first round of the by-election was held on 26 May, and the second round was held on 9 June. Citizens wishing to cast their ballot over the Internet for the first round were able to do so from 15 to 21 May.[20]

Candidates

There were twenty candidates:[21]

  • Marie-Rose Koro, a resident of Turkey,[22] for the Socialist Party
  • Valérie Hoffenberg once more for the UMP
  • Michèle Parravicini once more for the Left Front
  • Athanase Contargyris, a Franco-Greek businessman living in Athens,[23] for Europe Écologie-The Greens
  • Meyer Habib, the deputy leader of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions,[24] for the centre-right Union of Democrats and Independents
  • Alix Guillard for the Pirate Party
  • Jonathan Simon Sellem for the classical liberal Liberal Democratic Party; a resident of Israel, he expressed the intention of defending Israeli interests in the French Parliament[25]
  • Julien Lemaitre once more for Solidarity and Progress
  • Twelve independent candidates. Among them, Alexandre Bezardin, a dissident from the UMP. He had been Hoffenberg's suppléant the previous year, but now stood against her.[26]

Results

Turnout in the first round was very low: 10.37%, with a "high" point of 14.56% in Greece and a low point of 7.03% in Israel. In a notable departure from the result of the previous year, the Socialist candidate was eliminated in the first round, leaving the UMP and UDI candidates to advance to the run-off. UMP dissident Alexandre Bezardin, standing as an independent, finished fourth, mostly attracting votes in Italy (where he came third, well ahead of Habib).[27]

2013 by-election: Overseas residents 8 - 1st round[27]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
UMP Valérie Hoffenberg 2,479 21.84 -0.36
UDI Meyer Habib 1,744 15.36 n/a
PS Marie-Rose Koro 1,659 14.61 -15.89
DVD Alexandre Bezardin 884 7.78 n/a
FG Michèle Parravicini 807 7.10 +0.78
PLD Jonathan Sellem 755 6.64 n/a
EELV Athanase Contargyris 666 5.86 -4.64
Independent Nathalie Mimoun 589 5.18 n/a
Independent David Shapira 479 4.22 n/a
Independent Albert Fratty 383 3.37 n/a
EXD Huguette Levy 203 1.79 -1.97
Independent Laurent Sissmann 141 1.24 n/a
Independent Sylvain Semhoun 127 1.12 n/a
PP Alix Guillard 111 0.98 n/a
Independent Cyril Castro 94 0.83 n/a
Independent Valérie Mira 89 0.78 n/a
Independent Ghislain Allon 48 0.42 n/a
SP Julien Lemaître 41 0.36 -0.74
Independent Frédéric Chaouat 34 0.30 n/a
Independent Guy Fitoussi 15 0.13 -0.37
Turnout 11,586 10.37 -3.00
2013 by-election: Overseas residents 8 - 2nd round
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
UDI Meyer Habib 4,767 53.36 -
UMP Valérie Hoffenberg 4,166 46.64 -
Turnout 8,933 9.10 -
UDI win (new seat)

References
  1. "Les élections en 2012 à l’étranger: Votre circonscription pour l’élection des députés" Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
  2. "Décret n° 2011-367 du 4 avril 2011 authentifiant la population des Français établis hors de France au 1er janvier 2011", Légifrance
  3. "Français inscrits au registre mondial au 31/12/2010" Archived 2011-05-15 at the Wayback Machine, French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
  4. "Les 229 Français de Palestine n’ont pas les même droits que les autres", Rue89, 27 May 2012
  5. "Arrêté du 14 mai 2012 fixant la liste des candidats au premier tour de l'élection des députés élus par les Français établis hors de France ", Journal Officiel de la République Française, 15 May 2012
  6. "8ème circonscription : Europe du Sud", Le Petit Journal
  7. "Législatives : l'UMP a désigné ses candidats pour l'étranger", Le Figaro, April 13, 2011
  8. "Elections législatives 2012 : nos candidates et candidats", Parti Socialiste - Fédération des Français à l'Etranger
  9. "Présentation de Michèle Parravicini", Le Petit Journal
  10. "Motion 13: Législatives 2012: Hors de France", Europe Écologie–The Greens
  11. "Les 11 candidat-e-s EELV sur les circonscriptions législatives hors de France" Archived 2012-01-14 at the Wayback Machine, EELV, 12 November 2011
  12. "Présentation de Corinne Rouffi", Le Petit Journal
  13. "Combat sans merci à droite pour le vote des Français d'Israël", Rue 89, June 23, 2011
  14. "GIL TAIEB : 5 questions pour une élection", Le Post, June 3, 2011
  15. Official results of the first round, French Ministry for Foreign Affairs
  16. "Législatives : tous les résultats des Français de l'étranger", Le Nouvel Observateur, 4 June 2012
  17. "Gil Taieb, 8e circonscription dernière ligne droite" Archived 2015-04-14 at the Wayback Machine, Le Petit Hebdo, 30 May 2012
  18. "Au meeting du candidat de droite Karsenty, militant d’Israël" Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine, Rue89, 16 March 2012
  19. "Le Conseil constitutionnel annule l'élection de deux députées PS des Français de l'étranger", Le Monde, 15 February 2013
  20. "LEGISLATIVES PARTIELLES – Les Français de l’étranger votent ce week-end", Le petit Journal, 25 May 2013
  21. "Retrouvez les candidatures aux élections législatives de la 8ème circonscription des Français de l'étranger", Le Petit Journal
  22. "LEGISLATIVES PARTIELLES – "Je me bats pour des valeurs", Marie-Rose Koro", Le Petit Journal, 30 April 2013
  23. "LEGISLATIVES PARTIELLES – Athanase Contargyris : "Une autre politique économique est possible"", Le Petit Journal, 29 April 2013
  24. "The vice-président du CRIF Meyer Habib candidat?", Le Petit Journal, 6 January 2013
  25. "For Franco-Israelis, a chance to elect their own ‘congressman’", Times of Israel, 22 May 2013
  26. "Français de l’étranger : double revanche", Radio France International, 24 May 2013
  27. Official 2013 by-election results, French government website
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