PARIS: In a good-natured atmosphere and an obvious mobilization, many Lebanese expatriates headed this Sunday to the town hall of the 15th arrondissement of Paris, an annex of which has been transformed into a voting center for the Lebanese legislative elections.
They came alone, or in small groups, some were accompanied by their young children, others by their pets.
They had to be there, whatever their tendencies, whether they were conservatives and supporters of one of the traditional political currents, or aspiring to change.
These elections triggered a kind of movement, a dynamic in which it is important to participate, because even if they live outside their country, they want to contribute to putting it back in working order.
Lebanon today is bruised, in a state of daily degradation, under the impact of the crises it is going through on the economic, financial, social, health level…
So yes, we must act to stop its fall, we must vote for these legislative elections which are the first since the popular uprising of 2019, and the tragic explosion of the port of Beirut in August 2020, in the hope of a better tomorrow. .
This enthusiasm for action is especially notorious among young Lebanese expatriates who refuse to give up and accept, with indifference, the annihilation of Lebanon.
These young people were present in large numbers at the polling center of the 15th century town hall, one of forty centers distributed in different regions of France on this election day to accommodate 28,136 registered voters.
On the town hall square, conversations were going well between different small groups of friends or acquaintances.
Some welcomed the mild weather which encouraged voters to move, others made predictions on the outcome of the ballot and its impact on the distribution of forces within the Lebanese parliament composed of 128 seats.
Many expressed criticism of the voting system designed to favor candidates from the traditional political class, promising to defeat them.
Many also complained regarding the organization within the polling station, where you have to go through three stages and be patient in the long queue of voters before finally putting your vote in the ballot box.
A truly tedious operation which lasts a good forty minutes and which begins at the entrance to the center where you have to find the number of the polling station allocated to each one, then wait to access the center and then wait once more to access the polling station. actual voting.
This slowness, explains one of the officials responsible for ensuring the smooth running of the ballot, is due to the crowds which she describes as surprising, but which she can only rejoice in her own words.
Indeed, the number of registered voters has more than doubled since the 2018 legislative elections, for which expatriates might vote for the first time. They were then 9800 in number.
Once their duty as citizens had been accomplished, several of the voters chose to prolong the moment by lingering in the town hall square or by sitting down in the nearby cafés.
Among these a couple wanted to immortalize the memory of their participation in the ballot by taking a photo of their indexes coated with indelible ink proving their passage to the polls.
The sight of the indexes smeared with ink did not leave the waitress indifferent.