French legislative constituencies for citizens abroad

The newspaper pointed out that, in nine of these constituencies, a majority of voters appeared to favour the right, based on the figures from the 2007 presidential election.

[6] While Le Monde provided the figures without comment, left-wing politicians such as Jean-Jacques Urvoas, a Socialist member of the National Assembly, suggested that the government was attempting to provide itself with extra seats; Jean-Paul Lecoq, a Communist member of the National Assembly, suggested overseas citizens should continue to vote solely in French constituencies.

Two of the winning Socialist candidates were later disqualified by the Constitutional Council due to campaign finance irregularities.

The eleventh constituency, the largest, includes every other country in Asia, as well as the entirety of Oceania, along with Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.

The status of the Palestinian territories is not explicitly defined, but French residents there were able to vote, as part of the same constituency as Israel.

[12][13] In April 2011, the ruling Union for a Popular Movement chose several prominent members to stand as candidates overseas.

[14] By contrast, the Socialist Party preferred to select long-term residents of their respective constituencies, who are active in their local community but generally unknown in national French politics.

[17][18] The left's victory in North America was described as "incredible", and explained, by commentators in Libération, as being due to Socialist candidate Corinne Narassiguin's strong and active campaign, and local voters' rejection of UMP candidate Frédéric Lefebvre, perceived as knowing little about North America and as barely speaking English.

Others considered that the candidates were necessarily ill-suited to represent the interests of expatriates scattered over often vast and diverse territories.

[20] Based on projections from the 2007 presidential election results, the carving of constituencies should have resulted in a 9-to-2 division of the seats between the UMP and the Socialists, however French expatriates ended up electing seven Socialists, one Green (Europe Écologie - Les Verts) and three UMP deputies.

In February 2013, the elections of Socialist members of the National Assembly Corinne Narassiguin and Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou were annulled by the Constitutional Council, due to irregularities in the funding of their electoral campaigns.