Who is getting the Chinese vote in the French presidential election
As the presidential election looms in France, the country’s Chinese community is coming together to make its voice heard. So who will they be rooting for on Sunday?
For the first time in the history of France, a significant number of French Asians are prepared to make their voice heard in a presidential election.
Ahead of the first of a probable two rounds of voting, which takes place on April 23, Post Magazine talked to some French Asian voters to see which of the 11 candidates appeal to them.
We meet Li Hong in Le Bistrot de Pekin, an elegant restaurant a few hundred metres from the Chinese embassy in the chic Parisian neighbourhood of the Champs-Elysées.
“I came here, I saw the beauty of the country – Paris, the Côte d’Azur – and suddenly I had the feeling I had found my second home, that France was also my country,” says the sprightly 60-year-old from Beijing, who is sporting a flashy red-leather jacket over a pink jumper.
Li arrived in France in the late 1980s, working as an assistant in a maritime logistics company while studying for a master’s degree. A few years later, she opened her own company, importing Chinese textiles specifically designed for firemen and laboratory workers. In recent years, she says, she has seen the French economic landscape become more challenging for small businesses.
Her preferred candidate in the election is François Fillon, the embodiment of the conservative establishment, who is from a staunchly Catholic background. His manifesto is based on tax and public-sector cuts and the tightening of immigration rules, and he has taken a traditional stance on gay and reproductive rights.
