A lawyer has become France’s first “MP for Britain” — representing more than 100,000 French voters living in the UK.
Socialist Axelle Lemaire, 37, has been elected to one of France’s 11 new overseas seats, based in Kensington. Born in Canada, she has lived in England for 10 years.
Britain is part of the “third constituency” of northern Europe, which covers 10 countries including the Irish Republic, Scandinavia and the Baltic states.
The UK is by far the biggest sector, with its 113,655 French voters representing 80 per cent of the total.
London is now effectively France’s sixth biggest city. Ms Lemaire beat Emmanuelle Savarit, 39, of the conservative UMP party.
The new foreign constituencies are the idea of former French interior affairs minister Alain Marlaix.
He said: “This is the first time in any country in the world that something like this had been done. The new overseas MPs will have identical status to any other MP based in France.”
