Tomorrow - April 22 - the French community living in Tunisia will vote in the first round of the French 2012 elections from ten voting offices set up around the country.

Unlike the hundred plus candidates in the Tunisian October 2011 elections, there are just ten hopefuls in the upcoming French race for the presidential office. It is widely expected that in the second round of the elections on May 6, the incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement (center-right) party will face socialist candidate Francois Hollande.

The latest polls, published between Thursday and Friday by six different polling institutions, unanimously show Francois Hollande taking the lead in the first round with 26 to 30% of the vote, closely followed by Sarkozy with 25 to 28% of the vote. From the looks of it, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon will battle for third place, and are set up to obtain between 14 to 17% and 13 to 15% of the vote, respectively.

While Hollande and Sarkozy have been at the center of the campaign, several other candidates have received a lot of attention - with Marine Le Pen hailing from the far-right National Front (FN) party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon hovering between the socialists and the communists with the Left Front (Front de Gauche) party, and Francois Bayrou standing his ground at the center with the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party.

Estimated at 30,000 people, the French community living in Tunisia is largely bi-national. Approximately 70% of this community holds dual citizenship. This percentage is higher among the under-18 age trench of the French community in Tunisia (30% of the total), with 78% of bi-nationals. As of the latest statistics, 15,361 electors are registered on the electoral lists in Tunisia, and will participate in the ten voting offices spread throughout the country.

The Tunisian and Franco-Tunisian community living in France is far bigger, counting 500,000 people. While there is no data on the voting intentions of this community, it seems that the leftist candidates are positioned as favorites.

Anouar, a 29-year-old Tunisian working at Schneider Electric who declined to give his second name, moved to France in 2005. Four months ago, he was naturalized as a French citizen. Anouar is still waiting for his electoral card to be processed, and cannot vote in the first round of the elections. He hopes to receive it in time to vote in the second round on May 6.

Anouar said his identity as a Tunisian will impact his choice in the upcoming elections. "I will never vote for the right or for the National front. For the second round, I hope Hollande will win. From the angle of a Franco-Tunisian, I could not vote for Sarkozy." Anouar obtained French citizenship under the Sarkozy government, and by laws that were voted by Sarkozy himself when he was Minister of the Interior, from 2005 to 2007.

Anouar explained his choice, criticizing the incumbent president's tendency to pander to the far-right electorate, attempting to lure voters of the National Front party. "Ever since he was Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy has played the field of the extreme right. On one hand, he holds a far-right official discourse, where he denigrates foreigners...they are presented as a weight, that stops France from moving forward." But in practice, Anouar pointed out, the number of regularisations has stayed the same. In the programs that the candidates sent to the households of French electors, Anouar point out that the concluding message of Sarkozy's program (entitled "La France forte, c'est une France qui pèse de tout son poids dans une Europe qui protège") was to "give borders to France." "As a final message, I find this pretty shocking," said Anouar.

After graduating from IHEC Carthage in Tunis, Anouar attended ESCP Paris for three years before he was hired at Scheider with an indeterminate senior executive ("cadre") contract in 2008. "It is ten times easier to go to the United States to work than it is in France," Anouar stated. He explained that unlike in the United States, even if a foreign graduate of a French university signs a contract with a company in France, he can still be refused a "carte de séjour." He cited several cases of people who had graduated with him from ESCP, signed work contracts, and were subsequently refused a work visa. "There is no distinction between those [the foreigners] who studied in France and are here to work, and those who came illegally, and are working illegally or not at all...everyone is put in the same basket." Anouar said that as someone working in the finance sector, he did not understand this logic, with regards to the French economy. "To tell people who graduated from French schools, after paying 12,000 euros a year, that they are not granted work visas ... I don't understand it," he said. "These are people who are going to contribute to the economy," he concluded.

Amal Ketata, a 22-year-old Tunisian student in her first year at ESCP in Paris, also expressed concerned over the protectionism lauded by certain candidates, like Sarkozy. "Economic cooperation is a win-win relationship, and precisely in the case of France and Tunisia. It will allow both to stay competitive, and particularly Tunisia because it is dependent on this."

As a foreign student in France, Ketata is directly affected by the "Circulaire Guéant" polemic, something she expressed great concern over. The "Circulaire Guéant" concerns all non-European Union students who wish to stay in France after obtaining their degree, and aims to reduce their number. Despite such policies, in 2011, France remained the first country in terms of welcoming Tunisian students, with 15,000 signed up in French schools - 4,000 of which were new students.

"As a foreign student in France, I cannot understand the policy led by Claude Guéant. No matter what the result of the elections is, I strongly hope that there will be a positive revision, even a suppression, of this policy." For Ketata, this would be advantageous not just for foreign graduates wishing to start their careers in France, but also for France itself. "France is a very attractive country for the quality of the education it delivers...This is what yielded the cultural diversity that we find in French universities, and that is at risk of disappearing. The Circulaire Guéant is not only dissuasive for foreign students who are thinking about coming to France, but also for recruiters. In the long term, it will likely undermine the French diploma."

In Tunisia, Sarkozy earned a bad name for his government's reaction - or lack thereof - following the January 14, 2011 popular uprising. Bilateral relations, already scarred by France's colonial past, worsened. It seems that this, combined with Sarkozy's discourse on immigration and integration, has undermined the image of the French right in the eyes of Tunisians and Franco-Tunisians. Anouar affirmed that within his circle of Franco-Tunisians and Tunisians living in France, "the sensibility is much more inclined to the left."

Mohamed Dhaoui, the president of Action Tunisienne, an association based in Paris, agreed that there was an anti-Sarkozy sentiment within the Franco-Tunisian community. He insisted, however, that the same bipartisan debate exists within the Franco-Tunisian community as within the wider French community.

"There is a disappointment in the exiting government, who did not take position, but opinion stays very, very divided. I know people are voting for Sarkozy and Hollande both...but indeed, there is an anti-Sarkozy feeling [within the Franco-Tunisian community]," Dhaoui concluded.

Dhaoui explained that the uprisings in Tunisia and the Arab world in general have been more a "thematic of the left" in France. "We did not speak much about what happened...apart from two or three candidates, from the left. Mélenchon took position on cancelling the Tunisian debt, so did Eva Joly. Last summer, all leftist parties called for the signing of the movement of Tunisian migrants petition." A Franco-Tunisian citizen, Dhaoui is 32 years old, and has been living in France for thirteen years.

A 64-year-old French-Tunisian woman, who wished to remain anonymous, explained that some Franco-Tunisians will choose to vote for Sarkozy for economic reasons. "Some think that if there is a left-wing candidate, there will be no more jobs, especially if all immigrants are regularized." But overall, she felt the French-Tunisian vote was more inclined to the left, with Mélenchon or Bayrou for the first round and Hollande for the second round.

What is certain, according to Anouar, is that the French-Tunisian and bi-national Arab community will mobilize itself massively at the ballot box on Election Day. "I think the abstention rate in the foreign bi-national community will be far lower than the global abstention rate," he predicted.

Anouar deduced this not just from his Franco-Tunisian friend circle, but also by listening to Radio Orient, a French radio station that airs in both Arabic and in French. He explained that in the past two weeks, it has been insisting on the fact that everyone must vote, Franco-Tunisians, Franco-Moroccans, Franco-Lebanese, etc. "Even public French stations have not been insisting on the fact that voting is a duty," he said.

Tomorrow's vote might just bring in France's first left-wing president since Francois Mitterrand left office in 1995. But in the past, the "premier tour" has yielded surprises. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen unexpectedly snatched the second place away from Lionel Jospin in the first round, beating him by not even 1%.

Whether or not a change in which party holds office will impact Franco-Tunisian diplomatic relations is debatable. Ketata was skeptical about this, citing Jean-Luc Mélechon's recent promise of a moratorium on Tunisian debt payments to France.

"This was just a promise that isn't really a part of the preoccupations of the French people," Anouar said on the subject. "It's a good thing, but it is demagogical. It will never happen...especially given France's current situation. It already has many problems with debt. It cannot afford to annul Tunisia's debt."

What is likely, however, is that a left-wing president would reorient France's immigration and integration policies, perhaps paving the way towards enhanced relations between Tunisia and France on the diplomatic level.