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British man wins case after wrongly being removed from electoral roll in France

A British man with dual nationality has been reinstated on the French electoral roll after a tribunal ruled that he had been removed in error after Brexit.

British man wins case after wrongly being removed from electoral roll in France
Polling opens for municipal elections on Sunday, March 15th. Photo: AFP

Ronan O'Neill, who lives in the département of Yvelines just outside Paris, has dual British and Irish nationality by virtue of being born in Belfast.

But last month he learned that he had been struck off the electoral roll in France and would not be able to vote in the forthcoming municipal elections, because he was listed on the electoral roll as British.

The rules in France state that EU citizens who are full time residents in France can vote in local and European locals, although not in presidential elections.

Until recently this included British people, but on Brexit Day all British citizens lost their status as EU citizens and are therefore no longer allowed to vote in elections or stand for office in France.

READ ALSO 'We will miss our British councillors, they bring new ideas to France'

The exception to this is anyone who has dual nationality with another EU country, such as Ireland. 

As EU citizens they are allowed to remain in France without the need for further residence permits and they also retain the right to vote.

The French statistics body INSEE, which organises the electoral rolls, confirmed to French media that after Brexit it had been ordered by the Interior Ministry to remove all British citizens from electoral rolls.

However it added in a statement that: “It should be noted that only one nationality can be entered in the répertoire électoral unique or REU (electoral roll)” raising the possibility that other British dual nationals could also have been erroneously removed.

When Mr O'Neill learned of his removal, he took his case to a tribunal, which ruled that he should not have been removed and reinstated him to the roll.

Local media recorded the president of the Rambouillet tribunal telling Mr O'Neill: “The préfecture confirms that this disbarment does not take into account your dual nationality. You should not have been disbarred.”

READ ALSO What you need to know about France's municipal elections

INSEE released a statement after the tribunal reading: “Brexit has resulted in the withdrawal of the right to vote from British citizens of EU member states.

“As manager of the REU, INSEE has been instructed by the Interior Ministry to remove all British citizens from the register.
 
“In order to carry out these removals, INSEE relied on the nationality indicated in the REU for each voter and removed the voters for whom this nationality variable was set to “British”.
 
“It should be noted that only one nationality can be entered in the REU.
 
“The voter's nationality is information provided by the communes (or the voter in the case of an online application for registration) on the basis of the supporting documents provided.
 
“INSEE does not intervene at all in the consideration of a registration and the information contained in the REU is that resulting from the registration process, which is the responsibility of the mayor of the municipality.
 
“If people consider that they have been wrongly struck off the register because they have dual nationality, the only possibility now open to them, if they wish to take part in the municipal elections, is to apply to the judicial court.
 
“If the court asks for the person to be re-registered with Irish nationality, he or she will be able to vote and the REU will be corrected because all court decisions are sent to INSEE for modification of the REU.”
 
The first round of voting for the local elections – which elect local officials ranging from village mayors to the Mayor of Paris – is on Sunday, March 15th.
 

 

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POLITICS

How disinformation targeting Brigitte Macron spread to the US and UK

Years after false posts began circulating on social media claiming that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman, the French first lady remains the target of fake claims with the transphobic disinformation now being spread in the US and the UK.

How disinformation targeting Brigitte Macron spread to the US and UK

President Emmanuel Macron, 46, has in recent weeks lashed out at the false information spread about his wife, 70, who is taking legal action against those behind the allegations.

Prominent US right-wing commentator Candace Owens vehemently attacked the first lady in a now-deleted YouTube video posted on March 11th, propagating a false claim that first exploded in France just weeks before the 2022 presidential election.

Brigitte Macron is falsely said to have been born as a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux, her maiden surname, with that name going viral as a hashtag.

Macron is among a group of influential women – including former US first lady Michelle Obama and New Zealand ex-premier Jacinda Ardern – who have fallen victim to a growing trend: disinformation about their gender or sexuality to mock or humiliate them.

While this gendered disinformation is particularly visible in repeated attacks on prominent figures, it also affects women in general and sexual or gender minorities with differing levels of responsibility in public life.

According to the US-based observer group, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the goal is to drive women “off the platforms and out of public life”, which has serious consequences for democracy.

Originally shared in the United States on sites like notorious disinformation hub 4chan, the claim snowballed when figures “with very large audiences gave it visibility”, doctoral researcher Sophie Chauvet, specialising in audience metrics, told AFP.

In her video, conservative commentator Owens cites a “thorough investigation” by so-called independent journalist Natacha Rey, published in the French newsletter Faits et Documents in 2021.

Founded in 1996 by far-right French figure Emmanuel Ratier and now headed by Xavier Poussard, Faits et Documents regularly promotes stories targeting the first lady, a journalist at the French weekly L’Obs, Emmanuelle Anizon, told AFP.

“But what is new is that Xavier Poussard started translating his articles at the end of 2023,” Anizon said, adding that he claims to have sent an English version to those close to former US president Donald Trump.

Anizon, who spoke to Poussard and his associate Aurelien Poirson who advised on the translation, explained that it was no accident that the US far right had taken up the false claim ahead of the November US elections.

“It was their dream to export this claim across the Atlantic,” she said.

And it worked, spreading like wildfire after Owens posted her video with two associated hashtags shared tens of thousands of times on X, according to social network analysis tool Visibrain.

The false claims have also been repeated by tabloid newspapers in the UK.

The disinformation “was available as and when required”, said Sebastian Dieguez, an expert in conspiracy theories at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

The “secretly trans” narrative is a long-standing feature of online, sexist violence, according to a 2021 Wilson Center report.

The bottom line, according to the NDI, is that silencing women has “serious consequences for human rights, diversity in public debates and the media, and ultimately, democracy.”

The impact is also personal for those targeted and their families.

Emmanuel Macron addressed the fake claims on International Women’s Day, saying, “the worst thing is false information”.

“People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your private life,” he said.

The president’s relationship with his wife 24 years his senior, whom he met while she was a teacher and he was still a teenager, is periodically a source of media attention in France and abroad.

On March 22nd, a 51-year-old man was arrested in southwestern France for allegedly writing “Brigitte Macron, transsexual” on his garage, according to the French daily Le Figaro.

The first lady and her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux have taken legal action against two women who posted a YouTube video in December 2021 alleging she had once been a man named “Jean-Michel”.

A Paris criminal court is to try them on charges of defamation in March next year, a source close to the case has said.

The first lady’s daughter from her first marriage, Tiphaine Auzière, on Tuesday said she hoped the trial could quash the “grotesque” claims.

“Whether it’s my mother or anyone else in society, it can do a lot of harm,” Auzière told the BFMTV broadcaster.

“The justice system… can put an end to this misinformation and severely condemn the perpetrators because it’s a form of harassment like any other.”

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