French President Nicolas Sarkozy watches the raising of the French national flag as he visits 'Epide', a centre for young people who failed at school in order to ease their integration in active life, in Saint-Quentin, northeastern France, as part of his campaign, on March 5, 2012.
“Do you think French people want a government, a president who considers it a priority to give foreigners the right to vote?”—television interview April 24, 2012, on France 2, attacking the other proposal in pledge 50 of Hollande’s program.
Hollande would “grant the right to vote in local elections to foreign residents who have lived legally in France for five years.” That’s not much different from the same position Sarkozy took in 2005, when he stated “it wouldn’t be abnormal for a foreigner here legally, who works, pays taxes, and has lived here for 10 years to be allowed to vote in municipal elections…[as a means of] reinforcing the integration opportunities for legal foreigners.”