Naïma M'Faddel was a municipal councilor in Dreux, Trappes and Mantes-la-Jolie, then an associate in the office of Valérie Pécresse in the Ile-de-France region. She is a candidate under the banner Les Républicains in the legislative elections in the ninth constituency of French people living abroad. She published with Olivier Roy
And all that should make excellent French people.
Dialogue on neighborhoods
(ed. du Seuil, 2017).
The wealthy, the privileged… This is how our fellow expatriates are too often represented.
However, this caricatural and hackneyed picture of French people living abroad does not correspond at all to reality.
First of all, it should be specified that behind the general designation of "French nationals abroad" (1.8 million French people are registered in French Consulates) hide a multitude of varied situations such as self-employed workers, employees of SMEs or large groups, teachers in French high schools, academics, students or even retirees.
But whatever their social category, their socio-economic situation has clearly deteriorated.
While previously expatriation contracts were very advantageous, which fed the myth of the privileged expatriate, we see that they are less and less numerous.
Today, many French people living abroad are employees benefiting from an employment contract governed by local law, which is less advantageous than expatriation contracts, or are self-employed.
This feeling of being second-class citizens, ignored by the French administration, the French abroad have unfortunately particularly felt it during the health crisis.
Naima M'Faddel
Out of sight, out of mind tells us the old popular adage that French people living abroad check every day.
While they were pampered by the French State in the 1960s and 1970s, they are today at best ignored, at worst abandoned to their fate, victims of a mixture of unfounded prejudices, budgetary restrictions and revisions to the decline in France's international ambitions.
Indeed, for ten years, we have not stopped reducing the means of our diplomacy, closing consulates, eliminating posts and resources in the consulates that remain.
This feeling of being second-class citizens, ignored by the French administration, the French abroad have unfortunately particularly felt it during the health crisis: serious problems of mobility,
access to care and vaccines against Covid have been their daily lives.
However, the French abroad constitute a crucial relay to defend the economic and cultural interests of our country.
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Gradually, our compatriots have become the forgotten of the Republic who continue to list their difficulties such as the recognition of retirement points acquired in the country of expatriation, access to banking services, access to the offer health care or the care of people with disabilities, the proper payment of retirement pensions.
The birthplace located in France is fiscally considered as a second home, in disregard of their ties and their roots.
What can be said of the tax injustice they have been victims of since 2012, when the Socialists had subjected all French people living abroad to the CSG – CRDS and when, condemned by the European court, they decided to maintain this contribution for European extras?
Discriminating taxation.
By denying French nationals living abroad the right to free access to education, the French State is placing itself in the most total illegality.
Naima M'Faddel
This injustice also concerns access to education, a sacred right guaranteed by our Constitution.
As the Education Code reminds us, “
education is free for students in public high schools and colleges which provide secondary education, as well as for students in preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles and higher education. secondary public education establishments
.
However, our compatriots today have to spend a fortune to send their children to school in our establishments.
By denying French nationals living abroad the right to free access to education, the French State is placing itself in the most total illegality.
Nicolas Sarkozy had introduced free education for French high school students to begin with with the idea of generalizing it to all schooling, but François Hollande, yielding to the unfounded prejudice that expatriates would be wealthy, restored tuition fees and obviously discarded the idea of free.
According to a Senate report, these costs have been steadily increasing since 2012 to reach an average level of €5,300 per child in 2017. Since 2017, the situation has continued to deteriorate, with the costs increasing further every year. year.
These burdens are sometimes unbearable financially and above all morally for the French abroad who all too often have the feeling of being second-class citizens whereas the children schooled on the national territory (even when
they are not French) benefit from free education.
Faced with this exorbitant cost, many expatriate families have had to give up, when they could, schooling their children in the French system.
Jules Ferry's school laws have been the pillars of our republican ideal since the fundamental law of June 16, 1881.
Naima M'Faddel
Let's not forget that free education is an issue of fundamental principle.
Indeed, Jules Ferry's school laws have been the pillars of our republican ideal since the fundamental law of June 16, 1881. However, these laws, in addition to the secular and compulsory nature, provide for free education.
Setting up paid education therefore constitutes a terrible sprain and a serious renunciation of this republican principle, which is nevertheless a founding one.
The place of delivery of the education, here abroad, cannot constitute a valid factor justifying such discrimination between French nationals from abroad and French nationals from the national territory.
The breach of the principle of equality between French citizens also does not respond to any reason of general interest.
This decision is motivated solely by the concern for the French State to make savings on public expenditure.
But the French abroad do not have to bear the brunt of the mismanagement of their rulers.
Especially since in its decision of April 9, 1996, the Constitutional Council stipulated that
"the principle of equality does not preclude the legislator from regulating different situations differently or from derogating from the equality for reasons of general interest provided that, in either case, the resulting difference in treatment is directly related to the object of the law which establishes it
”.
Finally, the argument that expatriates are rich and have the financial means to ensure their own fate does not hold.
First, because it flouts the principle of republican equality on which our school is based.
In France, school is free for all children of the Republic, rich or poor, whatever their social condition.
In this case, why make expatriates pay more than those who have the means and who live on the national territory to have access to the school?
Above all, this argument does not (or no longer) correspond to the sociological reality of expatriates.
They are often in the worst possible situation: too well-off to qualify for scholarships, not well-off enough to be able to pay too high tuition fees without sacrificing themselves financially.
The argument that expatriates do not pay taxes in France does not hold either: a lot of expatriates have savings or real estate in France on which they pay taxes.
For all these reasons, it seems essential to me, in the name of the founding principle of republican equality, to restore from 2022 free education for the children of French people living abroad.
It is also urgent to encourage the recruitment of French teachers to practice in these establishments and to place them under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Education, and no longer under the sole supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Defending French establishments abroad is not an empty expense, it is an investment, because they contribute to the influence of the French language and culture as well as to the political, economic and intellectual influence of France. abroad.
It is up to us to support the Francophonie, to revitalize the links between Africa and France so that France strengthens and enriches this affective, fraternal and unique relationship that we have with French-speaking Africa.
