FRANCE:The head of the French Socialist party in Ireland, Hélène Conway, has said she believes French people living in Ireland may be sympathetic to the plight of minorities in France when thinking about their nation's upcoming election.
"French people here are immigrants themselves, so they would be far more sensitive to these issues than French people living in France," she said yesterday at a meeting of the French Young Socialist Movement in Dublin.
"The French here are far more open to what it is to not speak the same language or not have the right name when you go for an interview."
In France, however, feelings about immigrants are more complex, she noted.
Such issues have been in the public eye recently in the light of serious rioting at the Gare du Nord in Paris earlier this week.
"The French are torn between their human rights notions and the way they feel at home when faced with unemployment, when they see the immigrant population as competition," Ms Conway said.
With a significant increase in French voter registration around the world in 2006, feelings are obviously strong, one way or the other, she added.
Last year 830,000 French people living overseas registered to vote, a figure that has doubled since 2002. Almost 5,000 French citizens living in Ireland have registered.
While Ms Conway believed this increased interest was a positive development, she was reluctant to offer an interpretation.
"It is a good thing, but at the same time I don't know why - obviously they want to vote.
"Either they want to vote to keep things as they are, or to vote to change things."