Reflections on the 2012 Presidential election

I haven’t talked about the 2012 presidential election in France (April 22/May 6) in much detail yet, largely because I prefer to analyse elections after the fact, because any analysis prior to any votes being cast is going to be based on a successions of polls, hearsay, personal opinions, and the usual political shenanigans and platitudes. There is also the fact that I personally can’t bring myself to care all that much about the campaign itself, though I anxiously await the results of the first round to develop some solid analyses and draw up some detailed maps of the results which will tell us, better than anything else, what exactly happened.

That being said, having been called upon by a good friend of mine who has dedicated himself to tracking (in French, naturally) the polls and patterns of this campaign  to offer my analysis and point of view on a few matters of relevance to this campaign and the patterns which have emerged in the polls thus far. I felt it reasonable to put together a post with a few personal reflections and observations of the campaign (and the polls) thus far.

Voting intentions for the first round of the 2012 French presidential election (source: sondages2012)

My friend’s blog has developed an aggregate tracker of all polls published, which he can explain far better than I can. I have copied the graphical representation of this tracker since May 2011 on the right of the screen. The main trends since December 2011, which is when the campaign entered the “serious” part, have been as follows:

On the left, François Hollande (PS) has seen his poll ratings drop by a not inconsequential amount though not for that matter at an alarming pace. He had a brief bump in early February, following a very successful campaign rally at Le Bourget. The indicator pegs him at 27.3%.

On the right, Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) saw his poll ratings grow at a steady and fairly rapid pace between late January and this week. He started gaining at a steady pace following the official announcement of his candidacy on February 15, and maintained his dynamique following a successful rally at Villepinte and the tragic shootings in Toulouse. Symbolically, Sarkozy has now surpassed Hollande in most polls for the first round. The indicator pegs him at 28.4%.

On the far-right, Marine Le Pen (FN) has seen her support drop about at the same pace as Nicolas Sarkozy increased his support. She is a long way from her headline-making peaks of the summer of 2011, when was roughly tied with Sarkozy. She is pegged by the indicator at 15.3%, which would be a strong showing for the FN but certainly an underwhelming performance for her considering her string of successes in 2011.

On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (FG) has been the top mover-n’-shaker of the first round thus far. Now pegged at 13.5% by the indicator and polling as high as 15% in some polls, Mélenchon began a phenomenally rapid surge in early March, a surge which has yet to peter out though it is stabilizing at a ceiling of 13-15% for him. Explanations for this surge abound, and the answers are not as simple as the graph may indicate. Mélenchon’s dramatic emergence in this race, moving up from the second tier to the first tier and rivaling Marine Le Pen for third place has been the most important event of a rather uneventful, uninspiring and stale campaign thus far.

In the centre, François Bayrou (MoDem), after a successful rapid emergence in the first tier in December following his official announcement and the launch of his trademark industrial nationalism shtick (produire français) has failed to take his early dynamique any further despite a lot of potential openings for him since then. After stabilizing at a fairly decent 12-14%, he has since shed support at a fairly alarming pace, the indicator now pegging him at only 10.9%.

In the second tier, Eva Joly (EELV) has continued her slow descent into the abyss with an unabated and general decline in all polls from a strong 4-6% base in December to a stable 1.5-3% range today, the indicator placing her at 2.2%. None of the other four candidates (the DLR’s Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the far-left’s Nathalie Arthaud and Philippe Poutou and the LaRouchite Jacques Cheminade) have been capable of gaining relevance – or even support consistently above 1% – since the serious things began. Their last chance will be the two-week long official campaign, where official television ‘spots’ by each candidate are run.

Based on these general trends, what are the main things we can take away from this and what are the explanations for these events?

1. Why the Mélenchon surge?

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s surge, as aforementioned, is probably the most dramatic event of what has been a fairly boring and stale campaign. With support somewhere between 12 and 15%, Mélenchon could potentially place third.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former Socialist cabinet minister and traditionally one of the top figures of the party’s left-wing, left the party following the chaotic Reims Congress (2008) to create the Left Party (PG) which claims to emulate the German Linke. Although the PG as an individual political party has an extremely limited base, it has the sizable benefit of having as its leader a dynamic, charismatic and assertive man who has proven capable of reinvigorating the left of the PS. In 2009, the PG allied with the Communist Party (PCF) – whose infrastructure, grassroots and traditional core electorate is much larger than that of the PG but which is totally devoid an inspiring, charismatic dynamic leader – to form the Left Front (FG) which achieved some success in both the 2009 European and 2010 regional elections.

The FG serves the interests of both partners. For the PCF’s leadership, an alliance with Mélenchon is a golden opportunity for them to regain political relevance and touch a wider base. In the 2007 presidential election, the PCF’s candidate, Marie-George Buffet – one of those boring party apparatchiks with which the PCF abounds – won a disastrous 1.9%, placing the party’s very survival into question. The FG, from the PCF Politburo’s point of view, is a terrific lifeline for them and allows them to reach out to voters who would not have considered voting for a party apparatchik like the party’s current boss, Pierre Laurent. For the PG, the FG is the tool with which Mélenchon can put his hands on a rather well-oiled political machine to further his political ambitions (the leadership of the “left of the left”).

Mélenchon was always going to perform much better than Marie-George Buffet (1.9%) in 2007, which is one of the main reasons why the bulk of the PCF’s base embraced him. However, beginning in January, he started creeping up from behind – without many observers taking note of it – largely because it was not a very dramatic boost, only slowly moving up from 6% to 8-9%. In early March, his surge began. The first signs of the surge actually happened prior to his massive rally at La Bastille in Paris, which is often cited as the moment at which his candidacy really took off.

What can explain this surge?

Firstly, there is his personality. He is charismatic, dynamic and extremely assertive. Besides his tendency to go on slightly amusing rants against journalists he has a grudge against, his demeanor and style – forcefully and passionately defending his political positions – seems to have convinced many left-wing voters who have been disappointed by Hollande, known for his more moderate tone. Though Hollande’s image as being “soft” is not entirely correct, it is not entirely false either. During the PS primary, Hollande’s main weakness was on his left, where he was open to criticism for his ‘softness’ and ‘weakness’. For a lot of left-wing voters who are very motivated by the urge to defeat Sarkozy and to dramatically change courses, Mélenchon can appear as a far more assertive and dynamic candidate than the “soft” Hollande whose campaign has been hesitant and fairly quiet since his successful outing at the Bourget.

Mélenchon has seen his ‘image’ improve considerably, though it is up for debate whether this is the result of the surge or if it is indeed a cause of the surge. In the past, his image as an angry, bitter man known for his tirades and bad temper against journalists gave him a fairly negative or at least polarizing image in the wider public opinion. However, voters seem to have rediscovered his charisma and dynamism, and in turn have judged him more favourably.

Mélenchon, to conclude on this point, has all the qualities needed for a successful candidate: charisma, a strong talent for the oratory, dynamic and appearing as a fairly honest person who believes in what he preaches, and who can convey his message forcefully and successfully. Hollande’s charisma is not horrible, but he certainly doesn’t have Mélenchon’s appearance as a skilled orator.

Secondly, there is the rhetoric. Mélenchon has successfully claimed the mantle of the anti-system/anti-establishment, somewhat ‘revolutionary’ candidate on the left of the spectrum.

There is a certain appetite and indeed some room in France, especially on the left and especially in times of economic crisis, for a candidate who takes a very anti-system message on issues such as the banks, high earners, tax evaders, austerity measures, social policies and defending the welfare state. Foreign observers are quick to note with some amusement how French voters always stand out in western Europe for their pronounced skepticism towards capitalism and globalization, and their penchant for economic populism and watered-down protectionism. It is hard to quantify (and I love quantifying stuff), but it is not unreasonable to claim that Mélenchon has taken on a stature as a forceful anti-system advocate for economically populist propositions (measures such as increasing the minimum wage to €1700, a ’100% tax bracket’ on revenues above €360,000, a cap on maximum salaries) which tend to be popular in times of economic crisis.

Related to this above point, Mélenchon has likely become one of those candidates who is attractive to protest voters – those who “vote with their middle finger”. His whole rhetoric, standing outside the system and his tirades against big business and corporations, makes him a natural fit for these anti-system protest voters who in the past have flirted with the Le Pens but also, in 2007, with François Bayrou with his image as the “respectable” but still outsider, anti-system candidate.

In an Ipsos poll, 31% of his voters cited a “desire to reflect my discontent” as one of three main vote motivators – which is quite a bit above the national average (23%), but also far below the average for Marine’s voters (46%). He is not entirely a protest candidate. 22% of French voters cited “rejection of other candidates” as a vote motivator, but only 6% of Mélenchon’s voters cited this as a voting motivator (against 23% for Le Pen). For 78% of Mélenchon’s voters, his ideas or proposals were one of the top three voting motivators – the highest of any candidate besides Eva Joly. At this point, Marine Le Pen remains much more of a protest candidate than Mélenchon, but Mélenchon certainly has a base of support with these heterogeneous protest voters.

2. Where is Mélenchon’s surge coming from?

According to Ipsos, whose polling saw Mélenchon jump from 9.5% on March 3 to 13% on March 24, the vast majority of his gains come from voters who have switched their allegiance from another candidate. Ipsos estimates that Mélenchon gained 2% (out of 3.5%) from François Hollande, 0.5% from François Bayrou, 0.5% from Marine Le Pen and 0.5% from ‘other candidates’.

It seems quite reasonable that part of Mélenchon’s surge in the past few weeks came from voters who had previously supported Hollande. My theory on this matter is that Mélenchon gained the support of a fraction of the left-wing electorate which is very much anti-Sarkozyst and lying on the left of the PS. These voters may have supported Arnaud Montebourg in the PS-PRG’s open primary in 2011, but opted to support Hollande following his victory for reasons including party unity, ability to defeat Sarkozy and perhaps convinced by some of his left-wing planks (the 75% tax bracket).

However, these voters were likely frustrated by Hollande’s “soft” image following the Bourget, his inaudible campaign and in general his more centrist and moderate image which might have prompted some to support Montebourg or Martine Aubry back in the primary. For these voters, either from the left of the PS or on the fence between the PS and the “left of the left”, Mélenchon likely proved an attractive candidate who talks about the left-wing themes they want to hear and takes a forceful posture against Sarkozy. The media narrative about the inevitability of a Hollande-Sarkozy runoff, and how Hollande is the favourite dog in that race likely reduces the risk, for these voters, of voting for a candidate other than the top two. There is still a tendency on the left for the vote utile (‘useful vote’, aka voting for one of the top two contenders, not the also-rans) since the 2002 disaster, for it is not as prominent today with the narrative and appearance of Hollande’s inevitability. It is thus less risky for these voters, not too impassioned by Hollande but very determined to defeat Sarkozy, to vote for a candidate (Mélenchon) closer to their own views (which are likely to the left of Hollande) while still voting for Hollande without many second thoughts in the runoff.

Indeed, polls shows that about 85% of Mélenchon’s voters will vote for Hollande over Sarkozy in the runoff, with about one in ten of his voters likely to abstain and only a tiny fraction which will vote for Sarkozy. From this quantitative point of view, Mélenchon’s surge is not really a problem for Hollande (as long as it stabilizes at where it is now, 13-15%). However, from a qualitative point of view, one could argue that Mélenchon’s surge forces Hollande to tack left in the first round and perhaps in the runoff, in the process running the risk of losing more centrist voters who might edge towards Bayrou.

It is slightly more surprising to see Ipsos estimate that Mélenchon gained 0.5% from both Bayrou and Marine Le Pen. From a purely ideological point of view, Bayrou and Mélenchon do not have much in common – if anything at all. Marine Le Pen and Mélenchon are sworn enemies and polar opposites, especially after Mélenchon savaged her in a televised debate. However, ideology isn’t everything in the wonderful world of politics. We will come back to the issue of Marine vs. Mélenchon in more details later.

As for Bayrou’s voters switching to Mélenchon, it must first be said that this is only a small fraction and you could very well sketch it up to margin of error problems in the polls. If we are, however, to assume that some Bayrou supporters have switched to Mélenchon, what could be the cause? The most likely option is that Bayrou, in his December surge, picked up some of the voters who had backed him in 2007 not because of centrist-UDF traditions but rather because of Bayrou’s 2007 image as the “respectable” anti-establishment candidate. His whole “industrial nationalism” shtick (produire français/made in France), which is certainly very distant from the traditional internationalism of the UDF, might have been a factor in attracting some non-centrist ‘protest-type’ voters to Bayrou in December. When his campaign started to founder, however, he might have lost these fickle voters to Mélenchon who, while not hammering the industrial nationalism stuff, does in some regards come close to the contemporary political style of Bayrou or the 2007 image of Bayrou as the “anti-establishment candidate of the establishment”.

According to an Ifop study on the dynamique Mélenchon, Mélenchon attracts the support of 11% of Bayrou’s 2007 voters.

3. Marine Le Pen vs. Jean-Luc Mélenchon

It might be tempting and indeed obvious to connect Mélenchon’s surge with Marine Le Pen’s steady erosion of support (see the graph above). This theory brings us, incidentally, to the media’s favourite theory (and my pet peeve): that the FN’s rise to prominence in the 1980s was fairly directly correlated with the PCF’s decline. Certainly if you only look at graphs, the FN grew at the same time as the PCF declined. Hence, the story goes, Mélenchon might be attracting some old left-wing/Communist voters who had taken to voting for the Le Pens in recent years.

One cannot really dispute the idea that the FN attracted traditionally left-wing voters, usually lower middle-class or working-class, who were disappointed by the economic crises and corruption scandals of the Mitterrand years and attracted by the working-class, anti-immigration populism of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the FN. In past posts, I have talked at some length about the idea of gaucho-lepénisme which denotes a certain category of traditionally left-wing voters who vote for the FN in the first round but tend to vote for the left in the runoff. The 1990s, especially the 1995 presidential election, was perhaps the peak of gaucho-lepénisme, which subsequently declined a bit in 2002 but might have had a little renaissance of sorts in 2010-2011.

Let us be careful, however, about equating gaucho-lepénisme with some concept of a “communists for Le Pen” phenomenon. The media loves to claim that there exists a strong correlation between a Communist tradition and a strong FN base, while Communist sympathizers categorically deny any such correlation (often using the 1984 European elections as proof!). Neither side is entirely correct, because the issue can’t be black and white.

There are certainly grounds for PCF voters to switch to the FN: two protest parties, both attracting support from “unhappy” protest/anti-system voters, both speaking out against the big corporations and those who prey on the working poor. People vote the way they do for all kinds of reasons, and switch partisan allegiances in a manner which may appear crazy or contradictory. Thus, there is certainly a small minority of PCF voters who flirt with the FN on occasion. In 2002, 5% of Robert Hue’s 1995 voters voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen as did 7% of PCF sympathizers. In 2007, again, 7% of PCF sympathizers voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen. In 2010, only 1% of PCF-PG sympathizers voted for the FN though 6% of those who had voted for the FG in the 2009 European elections voted FN.

However, the FN’s gains in working-class areas since the late 1980s have been most important in right-wing working-class areas (they certainly exist) or left-wing working-class areas where the PS has tended to be the dominant party. Using a sample of 122 working-class municipalities with a significant population, there was, in 1995, a strong negative correlation of -0.56 between Hue and Le Pen, which was carried on to 2002 (-0.48) and 2010 to a lesser extent (-0.32). There was, in addition, a strongish negative correlation of -0.36 between the FN’s 2010 performance and Robert Hue’s 1995 performance. This is, of course, only a limited sample, but in these core working-class areas (the sample includes PCF, PS and right-wing dominated locales), the FN clearly performed much better in traditionally right-wing working class areas (Cluses-Scionzier, Oyonnax, Moselle’s mining basin, Mazamet or the Yssingelais for example) while its performances in historically Communist working-class areas was rarely very strong and much more often average, mediocre or even weak.

In the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, for example, the FN’s “new” working-class bases have historically been municipalities where the PS, not the PCF, dominated politics. Hénin-Beaumont, was just as left-wing as other surrounding mining basin communities, but the PCF has not been particularly strong there since the 1980s. Lens, Halluin, Roubaix or Tourcoing are other examples of PS-dominated working-class or working poor communities where the FN is strong. In contrast, the Communist strongholds of the mining basin in the same region (Divion, Auchel, Carvin, Avion, Denain, Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, Somain, Marchiennes) have not really distinguished themselves by particularly strong FN performances – even in the Marine-mania of 2010. The same results can be observed in Meurthe-et-Moselle and Moselle, where the PCF’s strongholds are weak points for the FN while working-class areas of Socialist or right-wing tradition tend to distinguish themselves by strong FN performances.

The traditionally Communist regions where the FN has tended to be strong tend to be inner suburban “red belt” municipalities (notably in Paris’ red belt but also the Rhône or Isère), where the presence of large immigrant communities might lead some old Communist supporters to switch allegiances to the FN. In addition, a lot of these inner suburban ‘red belt’ communities are no longer working-class areas but rather lower middle-class areas with large population of low-level employees, some public servants, other working poor, unemployed workers and so forth. The PCF’s lingering support in these inner suburbs as compared to “mining basin” urban areas (in the Nord or Lorraine) might be more the result of family tradition, local party infrastructure and Communist machinery than any remaining attachment to the parti du prolétariat.

Communist voters who abandon the party are more likely to switch their allegiances to the PS, or, between the 1990s and 2010, the far-left. Indeed, between about 1995 and 2007, the far-left – both Arlette Laguiller’s LO and later Olivier Besancenot’s LCR – was an attractive left-wing protest option for some working-class voters. In 2002, the far-left combined won 16% of the vote amongst ouvriers against only 3% for Robert Hue. In 2007, the far-left combined won 12% of their vote against only 2% for Marie-George Buffet. In 2002, 19% of those who had voted for Robert Hue in 1995 voted for either Arlette or Besancenot, while 11% voted for Lionel Jospin and only 5% for Jean-Marie Le Pen.

All this spiel can usefully point out that the correlation between PCF decline and FN gains is not as perfect as the old myth would like to make you think. But what about the links between FN decline and “left of the left” gains? The quantitative data on this is sparse, but very few people who vote FN tend to go back to vote for the PCF or the “left of the left”. In 2007, only 3% of Le Pen’s 2002 voters voted for one of the three far-left candidates and next to none of his 2002 voters voted Buffet. Same story in 1995, 2002 or 2010. If a Le Pen voter was to switch to the left, it would be to the far-left.

It is hard to see that much of Mélenchon’s gains came from voters who had once flirted with the possibility of voting for Marine. There is certainly some overlap, but I subscribe to the view that Mélenchon’s gains and Marine’s recent decline are not really correlated in any significant manner. Marine Le Pen’s decline is much more closely linked to Nicolas Sarkozy’s gains.

Ifop’s aforementioned study, to which we will come back to in more detail, showed that 3% of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 2007 voters are opting for Mélenchon, which is very negligible. If you could ask Le Pen’s 2002 voters, I doubt the percentage would be significantly higher – considering that in 2007, Le Pen’s electorate had kept a lot of the working-class votes but shed a lot of the more middle-class or white collar votes of 2002.

It seems as if Mélenchon’s gains come on the backs of those voters who had abandoned the PCF in favour of either Arlette or Besancenot between 1995 and 2007. Given that in the absence of either of those two emblematic leaders of the far-left, their parties have been reduced to their “real” base (0.5-1%), Mélenchon has likely garnered the support of voters who voted for the far-left in the past two or three presidential contests.

Ifop’s study showed that Mélenchon stood at 63% support amongst those who had voted for Besancenot in 2007 – up 25 points from their first study on the Mélenchon vote. This is probably a small sample size, but it is not crazy to assume that Mélenchon’s surge came, in large part, from people who had voted for Besancenot in 2007 but who had put their votes “on the market” this year. It is not unreasonable, in this case, to assume that a small but significant share of the electorate shifted their sympathies from Arlette/Besancenot in 2007, Marine in 2011-2012 and abandoned Marine in favour of Mélenchon – perhaps as Marine Le Pen’s campaign was “back to basics” in terms of rhetoric (the old rhetoric on Islam, immigration, security; rather than her new working-class populism).

4. Who is voting Mélenchon?

Is Mélenchon ‘catching’ a working-class electorate, recreating the proletarian electorate of the PCF in the 1970s-1980s? Or is he instead appealing more to solidly left-wing public employees? The Ifop’s study on the Mélenchon phenomenon, very interesting and quite detailed, gives us a few answers.

In basic terms, Mélenchon’s electorate is more masculine than feminine and is heterogeneous in its age, appealing both to young voters (18-24) and older voters (50-64). He seems to have scored the most points with the youngest voters, with his support in Ifop’s March 13-27 pegged at 16% with those 18-24 against only 6% in its previous study between January 9 and February 8. These young voters likely come from Hollande more than any other candidate (perhaps Bayrou), but some might also be drawn from previous apathetic voters who were motivated by Mélenchon’s campaign.

Ifop offers us a very detailed analysis of his electorate by socio-professional category. There are certainly some cases of small samples, but the results are quite interesting. In table form, translated into English, it gives:

Socio-professional category	% Mélenchon, Ifop Mar 13-27 (avg. 13%)	vs. Ifop Jan 9-Feb 3
Artisans, merchants, farmers and business owners	10%	+5
Liberal professions (some doctors, lawyers etc)	11%	+6
Cadres (middle management) of businesses (engineers, admin, commercial, financial analysis etc)	9%	+4
Cadres (middle management) of the public sector (middle-level public servants, some doctors, professors, school administration, artists, librarians)	17%	+9
White collar professionals (professions intermédiaires) of the public sector (public servants, teachers, social workers, healthcare sector)	19%	+5
White collar professionals (professions intermédiaires) of businesses (representatives, salesmen, supervisor, technicians)	15%	+4
Public sector employees and police/military	12%	+5
Business employees (private sector workers, employees, secretaries) and commerce employees (cashiers, sellers)	12%	+5
Direct services to individuals (concierge, hairdresser, childcare, housewives etc)	8%	+1
Qualified workers	15%	+6
Non-qualified workers	20%	+10

Mélenchon is catching a very diverse electorate, performing best in the most left-leaning categories and not doing as well in the most right-leaning categories. The core of Mélenchon’s base is made up of public servants, especially those which form a sort of weird left-leaning petite bourgeoisie (though that is not the correct word, you get the point). He appeals to a middle-class electorate, which is concerned about things such as unemployment, cost of living, salaries, poverty and public services. As you can see in the above table, he performs very strongly with professionals and middle-level managerial types in the public sector, a category which includes teachers, social workers, healthcare workers, professors, healthcare and education professionals, school administrators, employees in state enterprises or similar professions. This was Mélenchon’s base before his surge, which gave him a strong footing with ouvriers - especially non-qualified workers. Mélenchon is not recreating the PCF’s old proletarian electorate entirely, but he is doing so in part. Hammering on the leftist rhetoric likely gained him some support or sympathy with unionized workers, who are concerned about losing their jobs or the cost of living or salaries.

Still, Mélenchon’s electorate is much more white-collar than the old PCF’s electorate in the 1970s and 1980s would have been. It is hard to quantify, but he might be attracting some support from particularly left-leaning bobos who are public employees. This is not a particularly ‘revolutionary’ electorate or a ‘protest vote’ electorate, but some might feel Hollande is too soft or too centrist. Furthermore, the collapse of Eva Joly’s candidacy might be attracting some “red greens” to his tent.

Ifop’s study also looked at what were the top policy priorities for Mélenchon’s electorate, compared to the French electorate as a whole. Clearly, Mélenchon’s voters are far more concerned than the average voter about salaries/cost of living (76% vs 54%), poverty (68% vs 52%) and saving public services (52% vs 32%). They are also concerned about matters such as education, healthcare, unemployment or the environment. But compared to the average voter, they are not really concerned as much by the reduction of the public debt (Sarkozy’s voters tend to rank this as one of their top priorities), insecurity/criminality (27% vs 43%) or illegal immigration (12% vs 36%). Marine Le Pen’s voters are disproportionately concerned by such issues, but for Mélenchon’s voters, the top priority are largely middle-class public sector preoccupations (very ‘social’ in nature, rather than ‘moral’ or ‘law and order’). Of course, some of Marine Le Pen’s voters are concerned by ‘social’ issues like these, but her electorate is by far one which is concerned by issues such as immigration or criminality.

5. Nicolas Sarkozy’s gains and a potential runoff victory

The gains made by Nicolas Sarkozy since he announced his candidacy is the second most notable story of this campaign thus far. Once performing extremely weakly in the first round, with only 22-24% support, he has now increased his support to a stronger 27-30% range. He is polling below his first round result in 2007 (31%) which had been a very good result, but he has certainly made up lots of ground. Even in the runoff, where he still trails by a large margin, he has cut Hollande’s lead pretty significantly. From a fairly crazy 20 point gap (60-40), he now trails by a smaller (though still fairly big) margin of 6-10 points.

The graph shows it clearly: Sarkozy’s gains have come at Marine’s expense. Marine Le Pen polled between 16-20%, which could have won her a result higher than her father’s historic 2002 showing (16.9%). She is now down to 13-16%, which would still be a very pleasing result for the FN after the 2007 routs, but underwhelming considering their successes in 2011. Worst, Marine Le Pen is now left fighting Mélenchon for third place.

Nicolas Sarkozy kicked off his campaign on a very right-wing note by placing emphasis on issues such as immigration, security, law and order. In this way, he plays upon the concerns and preoccupations of FN voters. His entourage has made it very clear that Sarkozy’s strategy for underdog reelection is faire campagne “au peuple”, which roughly means a very populist campaign oriented towards the lower middle-classes and working-class.

Sarkozy’s gains with traditionally left-wing or frontiste workers had been, in 2007, one of his main advantages. In 2007, he had already played a similar game with the rhetoric about work, effort, merit and so forth which appealed to FN voters and some working-class voters. However, during his presidency, he lost significant support with this same electorate which became very much anti-Sarkozy by cause of his image (too close to rich people and money), corruption and economic troubles. He is clearly aiming to reconquer the sympathies and vote of those who had voted for him in 2007 (working-class voters, old FN voters) but who had abandoned him in droves beginning in 2009-2010.

Thus far, he has had some success. His standing with ‘CSP-’ voters (lower socio-professional status) has improved rather significantly since 2011, and while it is still not good enough to win, it gives him reason to hope. With FN voters, he clearly has had some success in ‘poaching’ votes from Marine Le Pen. She peaked too early, banking on the fickle support of unhappy right-wing voters who have jumped back to Sarkozy’s vessels, either convinced by his rhetoric, his new image (for the seven hundredth time) or sympathy for a president who isn’t perfect but who “has done a good job”. Because she peaked too early, she now faces a decline in support as voters look twice on her, especially on her weak points (experience, economic/fiscal policy, foreign policy).

Nicolas Sarkozy banks on three first round results to give him a boost ahead of the runoff: clearly outpolling Hollande, winning over 30% and perhaps winning more than he won in 2007 (31%). It would give him a media narrative as a “comeback kid” who has overperformed expectations (historically, ‘first round boosts’ in runoffs are given to those who have overperformed expectations – such as Jospin in 1995) and who has patched his 2007 electorate back together.

Secondly, to win in the runoff, Sarkozy needs to perform very well with those who voted for Marine Le Pen in the first round. He needs at least two-thirds of their votes, whereas he now wins at most a bit over half of their votes. The problem is that, as Sarkozy eats up her electorate, her base becomes, like her father’s 2007 base, much more working-class/protest voting than otherwise. As in 2007, Sarkozy’s gains with the FN this year have likely proven strongest with the FN’s old base with exurban voters, the petite bourgeoisie and CSP+ (higher socio-professional status). In contrast, she hangs on to a CSP-/working-class electorate which is far more reticent towards Sarkozy and could prefer to vote for Hollande or not vote at all in the runoff.

Ifop had an interesting article which included some observations on vote transfers from Marine’s electorate. Unsurprisingly, those Marine voters who were most likely to go for Sarkozy in the runoff were CSP+ voters, while Marine’s ouvriers were far more resistant of Sarkozy, leaning in large part towards not voting at all or going for Hollande.

Beyond that, Sarkozy also needs to reconquer votes on the centre-right if he is to win in the runoff. This likely means outpolling Hollande  by a comfortable margin with Bayrou’s first round supporters. Bayrou’s campaign has been a flop, following a successful entrance in December, where he took some centrist votes from Hollande (former Borloo votes?) and Sarkozy. He has been squished out of a polarized left-right fight, hurt by his lack of charisma and the boredom he generally inspires. He has lost some anti-Sarkozyst moderates to Hollande, but has also failed to cash in from any potential dissatisfaction with UMP moderates from Sarkozy’s right-wing populist campaign. He is probably keeping a more centre-right-UDF style electorate at this point, having lost those left-wing, bobo and anti-system votes he had won in 2007.

Sarkozy has not concerned himself all that much with his problems with moderate and centre-right voters, who have proven, in the past at least, to be clearly unhappy with Sarkozy and the UMP’s right-wing rhetoric and focus on controversial issues such as immigration or criminality. In his present state, it is imperative that Sarkozy regains the support of at least some of these voters, some of whom are attracted to Hollande’s image as a calm, reasonable and fairly pragmatic candidate. Sarkozy should play on his strengths – and Hollande’s weaknesses – that is, his “presidential image” as the best possible leader to deal with the economic crisis and the debt/deficit. In this way, he could appeal more to centre-right voters… but he must resist any urge to go “too far” on the debt reduction theme as to prevent any losses on his right with populist voters hesitating between Marine, him and abstention.

Nicolas Sarkozy remains in a very tough spot for the runoff. In polls, he seems to have “peaked” in the runoff thus far. He has not polled any better than 47%, and consistently polls in a small 45-46% window. This would represent a fairly decisive defeat, a margin which would, if played out on May 6, be much larger than Giscard’s 1981 margin of defeat against Mitterrand. There is, especially on the left, a very strong anti-Sarkozyst element which will be very difficult for him to break.

2012 will most likely resemble 1981 out of any presidential election, rather than the incumbent reelections of 1988 and 2002. In 1988, an incumbent president was reelected because he benefited from a cohabitation which turned him into the “opponent” to an unpopular “incumbent” Prime Minister. Mitterrand no longer took the blame for unpopular government policy, because he was no longer the government. In contrast, he could brand Chirac as a sectarian, divisive right-winger, appearing as a ‘uniter’ against ‘the divider’. In 2002, we all know why Chirac was reelected, but even then, he semi-successfully played on his non-incumbent image to underline the left’s weakness with voters on issues such as immigration and security which played to Le Pen’s strengths and to Jospin’s weaknesses. In 1981, by contrast, an incumbent president was really the incumbent (like Sarkozy), bore the brunt of unpopular policies (Sarkozy perhaps even more so, because of his centralist style) and faced trouble within his own majority (Sarkozy’s problems with his right and ‘left’). On the left, a candidate who had some rivals on his left (Marchais > Mélenchon?) but who could nonetheless play a somewhat left-wing but still fairly moderate campaign which appealed to more centrist, moderate middle-class voters (like Hollande) who were hurt by the economic crisis or unhappy with the incumbent.

…

I do not plan on making any more detailed posts on the election on this blog until the first round. However, I might write a fairly detailed ‘preview’ of the first round for my other blog, World Elections.

50 years ago: the Évian Accords

50 years ago, the signature of the Évian Accords on March 19, 1962 signaled the end of the Algerian war and led to the independence of Algeria on July 5, 1962. In the Gaullist tradition of popular sovereignty, voters in metropolitan France were to ratify the accords in a hastily-organized referendum on April 8 while voters in Algeria – including, on paper, French citizens of Algeria – were to formally decide on their independence in a referendum on July 1. French voters on April 8 ratified the terms of the Évian Accords with 90.8% support and only 25% abstention. In Algeria, the result was an even bigger blowout: 99.7% voted in favour of Algerian independence, which was recognized by France on July 3 and proclaimed officially on July 5.

Already in January 1961, Charles de Gaulle had received popular approval through referendum of a rather vague program concerning self-determination in Algeria. de Gaulle had already privately decided that the sole solution to the Algerian crisis was Algerian independence, a fact which he recognized as early as 1959/1960. In reality, de Gaulle had never cared much for Algeria and his Algerian policy was first and foremost pragmatic. Following the 1961 referendum on self-determination, the French government and the Algerian nationalists (the GPRA and FLN) began talks in Évian, which broke down before re-opening in 1962.

The two main blockage points between the French government and the GPRA were the rights of Europeans residing in Algeria and the control of newly-discovered petroleum resources in the Sahara. France wanted some sort of “guarantees” concerning the rights of the European (white) residents of Algeria – the pieds-noirs, a population numbering about a million people and 10% of Algeria’s population. Similarly, French strategic interests were concerned about the control of French military bases (used for nuclear testing) and the ownership of the Sahara’s black gold. In the end, the Évian Accords (on paper) set out rights guarantees for the Pieds-Noirs during a three year period, while also allowing France to continue secret uses of its military bases for nuclear testing for 15 years and advantages in the control of the Sahara’s oil resources. Following Algerian independence, rights guarantees for European residents in Algeria were quickly forgotten: on the very day of Algeria’s independence, hundreds of French civilians were massacred in Oran.

The Évian Accords included a cease-fire and the organization of a self-determination referendum in Algeria in a three-month window to be held a minimum of three months after the signature of the treaty. In the period between the signature of the Évian Accords and the self-determination referendum, France retained sovereignty over Algeria through an interim executive and high commissioner representing France.

The opponents of Algerian independence, the so-called ultras who had formed the underground Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS) in 1961 which staged terrorist attacks with the aim of preventing Algerian independence. Following the Évian Accords, the OAS’ last hope was to prevent the timely organization of the self-determination referendum in Algeria. A mix of bombings, terrorist attacks and sniper shootings by the OAS with the aim of harassing the FLN into breaking the cease-fire and destroying the accords made the period between March and June 1962 one of the bloodiest periods in the war’s history. However, the OAS leader, General Raoul Salan was captured in April 1962 and the OAS compelled to a cease-fire in June.

The OAS or the cause of l’Algérie française never found a strong base of support with the metropolitan French population, which was in large majority exhausted of the bloody conflict and which harboured no sympathies for people they judged to be reactionary colonialists who were keeping them hostage in a futile conflict. However, the OAS and their cause had much more institutional support than popular support. A good number of government deputies from the UNR and the ‘moderates’ (CNIP) were favourable to l’Algérie française. Charles de Gaulle’s own Prime Minister, Michel Debré, was a not-so-secret opponent of Algerian independence. The OAS had received the backing of former UNR cabinet minister Jacques Soustelle and former MRP Prime Minister Georges Bidault amongst others. In November 1961, 80 deputies had voted in favour of the so-called amendement Valentin, which was widely interpreted as being dictated by Salan and the OAS. The ’80′ included CNIP deputy Jean-Marie Le Pen, Compiègne mayor Jean Legendre, ex-SFIO deputy Léon Delbecque, Perpignan mayor Paul Alduy, Pascal Arrighi, former Prime Ministers André Marie and Georges Bidault, and Tours mayor Jean Royer.

50 years ago: the Évian Accords referendum

On April 8, voters in metropolitan France ratified by a huge 9-to-1 majority the contents of the Évian Accords. The referendum was hastily organized, in part to prevent the organization of serious opposition, and the rules set up to keep French citizens in Algeria – constitutionally eligible to vote – from voting in the referendum. Nearly 17.9 million voters voted in favour of ratifying the accords, with only 1.8 million voting against. 24.6% of registered voters abstained while 4% (1.1 million) cast white or null votes.

In the 1961 self-determination referendum, opposition to the government’s vague Algerian agenda reached 25% – but largely because the French Communist Party (PCF), hostile to the government but a supporter of Algerian independence, had instructed its supporters to vote against. However, in April 1962, all political parties – the Gaullist UNR, the Socialists, the PCF, the MRP and the Radicals – supported a favourable vote. The CNIP gave no indication, while the left-wing PSU called in favour of a white vote (hence the high number of such ballots). The only source of opposition was to be the far-right, the nationalist sectors which had sympathy for the OAS and remained loyal to the cause of French Algeria.

The overwhelming victory of the yes vote on April 8 (91% of valid votes) represented two or three things. Firstly, and most importantly, a profound desire for peace and tranquility after years of war and recent terrorist attacks. In metropolitan France, by 1962, the war was no longer seen as being about upholding the French nation in Algeria and defending the French empire, but rather as a bloody futile conflict which stole the lives of countless young men from villages and small towns a across France. The pieds-noirs were not seen as the vanguards of empire, but rather as reactionary colonialists who had held the country hostage with their terrorist actions. Secondly, especially for Gaullist voters, support for Charles de Gaulle. In 1962, his support far surpassed that of the Gaullist party, the UNR, as his success in the face of cohesive left-right opposition in the November 1962 referendum proved.

Following Algerian independence, the pied-noir exodus to France was 10 times bigger than what the government had predicted. Official predictions believed that some 300,000 or so would move back to France but that the rest would opt to stay in Algeria. Over a million moved to France, only a handful remaining in independent Algeria. The massive exodus created a housing crisis in the regions where they settled (PACA, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, Aquitaine, Corse) and the rapatriés often faced discrimination or exclusion once they arrived. The communist left was particularly violent, but they were generally perceived by most as being backwards, racist, violent, less educated colonialists who had exploited the Algerian indigenous population.

Percent voting against the Évian Accords, as a percentage of valid votes (own map)

Let us stop for a moment on the 1962 referendum, in order to analyse who voted against the Évian Accords now that we know why people voted in favour. The map to the right shows the percentage of no votes by department in the Évian referendum.

The bulk of opposition was concentrated along a sort of line stretching from Bordeaux to the Italian border in the Alpes-Maritimes, following the Garonne valley and the Mediterranean coast in Provence. Opposition was highest in the Gironde department (14.4%), Tarn-et-Garonne (14.3%) and in Paris (14%). Other sizable opposition was found in the Lot-et-Garonne (13.3%), Gers (13.8%), Haute-Garonne (12.7%), Tarn (12.3%), Hérault (11.8%), Bouches-du-Rhône (13.4%), Vaucluse (13.8%), Var (13.1%), Alpes-Maritimes (13.4%) and Corse (12.1%). The only departments with similarly high opposition lying outside this region were the Indre-et-Loire (12.2%), Indre (11.9%) and Seine-et-Marne (11.9%).

The pattern of opposition to Évian in the south of France, following the Garonne valley and Mediterranean coast, resembles the pattern of support for 1965 far-right candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour who won his best results in this region. The reason is, of course, fairly simple: these were the regions which attracted the most pieds-noirs who settled along the coast or in urbanized areas (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Toulon, Orange, Lyon). The Pyrénées-Orientales also received a large pied-noir population, though apparently post-exodus since opposition to Évian was only 8.5% in 1962. Lyon (Rhône) and the high-growth inner suburbs (and new towns) in the Paris outskirts also received a large pied-noir population.

The 1962 referendum was held prior to the mass exodus, but a smaller share of pieds-noirs had already moved to France from Algeria since 1961 and there were, in addition, European settlers from Tunisia and Morocco who moved to France following the independence of both of these countries. It is of course hard to quantify the percentage of the population of each department which was of North African ‘ancestry’, especially in 1962.

Why the pieds-noirs voted against Évian does not merit a detailed explanation. There was a deep, profound sentiment in the pied-noir population which still endures to this day that they were ‘betrayed’ by the French government, especially by the ‘traitor’ Charles de Gaulle who had exclaimed, in 1958, vive l’Algérie française! Évian and the exodus turned the pied-noir community into an irremediably anti-Gaullist electorate. In 1965, Tixier-Vignancour had endorsed François Mitterrand over Charles de Gaulle in the runoff. Jacques Soustelle backed Jean Lecanuet in 1965 and Alain Poher in 1969. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was the favourite of the traditional far-right in 1974, especially over Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

The pied-noir explanation alone is a large part of the explanation, but pre-exodus it cannot account for a million voters and 9% of valid votes. Understandably given the low academic interest for the results of this plebiscite, there has been little if anything of note written about the results of the referendum and the electorates touched by the no vote. The following explanations take the form of assumptions and theories, which are not backed up by much academic literature but only by personal interpretations.

Paris placed third in terms of highest no votes, which is the first sign that the pied-noir explanation cannot explain it all away. Paris probably did not receive many pied-noir settlers, especially prior to July 1962. It is unfortunate that we do not have results down to the constituency level for this election, but the 1965 presidential election – specifically Tixier-Vignancour’s support – may give us indications about 1962. In 1965, Tixier-Vignancour’s support in Paris had been heavily concentrated in the most bourgeois upper-class neighborhoods on the west side of the city. He took over 8% of the vote in the very affluent 8th and 16th arrondissements, and over 7% in the equally bourgeois 7th and 17th arrondissements. Prior to the appearance of the FN in 1984 (and even then…) the far-right’s base in Paris had been with a comfortable, very affluent, traditional upper-class segment of society which had certain aristocratic roots and harboured sympathies for traditionalist causes such as that of the Action française. It is likely that the cause of French Algeria found some supporters in the Parisian upper bourgeoisie, expressed through a surprisingly large vote against Évian.

This 60s-70s phenomenon of far-right inclination amongst the upper middle-classes and the traditional bourgeoisie was largely a Parisian thing, but it also found expression in other large urban areas, including Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Rouen, Le Havre or Lille. As in 1984, Tixier-Vignancour tended to perform better in the more right-leaning affluent neighborhoods of large urban areas than the more left-wing working-class areas. This was not a particularly solid base for the far-right, in fact it only appeared in large numbers in 1965 and 1962. There existed some kind of natural bridge between far-right sympathies, sometimes expressed electorally, and traditional support for the ‘moderates’ (CNIP). The CNIP had a similar appeal to these types of voters, which harboured conservative views on matters such as French Algeria among other things. It is quite possible that in some larger urban areas, such as Paris or Lyon, some ‘moderate’ voters opted for a negative vote on Évian through support or understanding of the OAS and the nationalist cause of French Algeria.

There was an interesting outcrop of opposition in the Touraine – particularly in Indre-et-Loire (12.2%), Indre (11.9%) and Loir-et-Cher (11.5%). There is not much record of a large pied-noir population in this region, and besides Tours there are not many large urban areas with a large bourgeois electorate. Poujadism had done well in some of this region and in 1965, Tixier’s map revealed a similar outcrop of support in these departments. In this region, especially Tours and Indre-et-Loire, the French Algeria inclinations of conservative icon and Tours mayor Jean Royer (DVD) had some impact in stimulating a larger no vote. Boosted by Royer’s traditionalist influences, the local petite bourgeoisie and traditional middle-classes might have been inclined towards a no vote. A similar explanation might work for the Oise (11.5% no), where Compiègne mayor Jean Legendre (CNIP) had voted in favour of the ‘OAS amendment’. In the Côte-d’Or (11.1% no), perhaps the influence of viscerally anti-FLN CNIP Senator Roger Duchet and of the fairly conservative Dijon mayor Félix Kir (who had called for abstention himself) played a role in the department’s above-average opposition to Évian. In all these cases, the no vote was more the result of conservative ‘moderate’ (CNIP) voters with far-right inclinations than of any pied-noir vote.

Opposition to Évian was quasi-null in Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, the Nord, Brittany, parts of Maine and Savoie. All of these regions were more or less solidly Gaullist regions, most of them (especially Alsace or Brittany) inherited from the MRP. The Catholic departments come out pretty clearly on the map (the southern Massif Central also had very little no votes) as total dead zones for opponents of Algerian independence. Did faith have a role to play with opposition to the war, or was it Gaullism or perhaps a general isolation from the war activities? Being distant or isolated from the war theaters and the terrorist actions of the OAS perhaps solidified or intensified opposition to war which by the time of the Évian referendum had a very bad name in metropolitan France. Alsace and Lorraine are certainly not devoid of nationalist sentiments, past or present, but eastern France’s nationalism has historically tended to be driven by opposition to Germany than any imperialist or colonialist ambitions or sentiments.

50 years later: A Pied-Noir vote?

50 years after the independence of Algeria and the pied-noir exodus, how large is the “the pied-noir electorate” and what is its electoral impact? The traditional view is that the pied-noir community has retained a strong bias in favour of the far-right and hostility towards Gaullism and skepticism towards the left. This view is not too bad as far as generalizations go. It is often assumed that the FN’s strong support in PACA and Languedoc-Roussillon can be explained away, almost entirely, with the the large presence of the pied-noir electorate in these regions.

In January 2012, the CEVIPOF in collaboration with the pollster IFOP published a short analysisof the pied-noir vote 50 years later as part of a wider series of “sociological electorates”. According to the IFOP’s research, the pied-noir community proper would number around 1.2 million voters (2.7% of registered voters) but could be expanded to as large as 3.2 million voters (7.3% of voters) using a more liberal definition to include those who have a pied-noir parent or grandparent. The weight of the pied-noir community was found to be greater, logically, in Languedoc-Roussillon (15.3%), PACA (13.7%) Midi-Pyrénées (11.2%) and Aquitaine (9.6%). We can safely conclude that while the pied-noir electorate in these regions does likely play a role in strengthening the far-right, it is only one factor with many others which explain the far-right’s above-average support in these regions.

IFOP’s research also included a survey of the voting intentions of pied-noir looking ahead to next month’s presidential election. According to the study, the pied-noir vote in 2007 had favoured Nicolas Sarkozy with 31% against 20.5% for Ségolène Royal – an average vote for the right, a below average vote for the left – but Jean-Marie Le Pen, with 18%, had performed 8 points better than he did with the entire electorate. François Bayrou, on the other hand, did about 11 points worse with the pied-noir electorate (7%). In 2002, the study notes that about three out of ten pieds-noirs had voted for one of the two far-right contenders. In the perspective of 2012, the survey (conducted in October 2011 and based on a national sample of 29% for Hollande, 22.5% for Sarkozy, 19.5% for Le Pen and 15.5% for all centrist candidates) showed that Marine Le Pen led voting intentions with pied-noir voters with 28% against 26% apiece for Hollande and Sarkozy, with only 9% support for centrist candidates. Voters of pied-noir ancestry would opt for Hollande with 31% against 24% for Marine and 15% for Sarkozy.

The pied-noir vote is thus not homogeneously biased in the FN’s favour either. Further demographic studies of far-right support among pieds-noirs voters, broken down by age and social class, would prove even more interesting. Still, a sizable portion of the pied-noir demographic retains a tradition of far-right support. It is likely strongest with those who have not “moved on” entirely and still remain active in association or clubs for ex-French settlers in Algeria. The demands of these clubs and associations include the official recognition by the French government that it was responsible for abandoning them in the summer of 1962 (particularly the Oran massacres, which pieds-noirs claim de Gaulle’s government turned a blind eye to) and some sort of financial compensation for the loss of their property in Algeria in 1962. There is still resentment towards de Gaulle and hostility towards the FLN and Algerian government(s). Similarly, the harkis (Muslim Algerian supporters of France during the conflict) usually demand official recognition by the state that they were “abandoned” to be massacred in summer 1962. In 2007, Sarkozy had talked about compensation and a memorial law recognizing the state’s role in the ‘betrayal’ of the pieds-noirs and harkis. None of that has happened yet.

Unlike in the United States where it is easy to identify ‘symbol’ communities for various ethnicities or ancestries (such as Hialeah for Cuban-Americans), the lack of ethnic or ancestral statistics in France makes such analyses much more difficult. In a search for a ‘pied-noir symbol community’, the best possible ‘symbol community’ appears to be the small Marseille suburban town of Carnoux-en-Provence (canton of Aubagne-Est). A recent Le Monde human-interest article on the town estimates that about 60% of the town’s 7000 or so inhabitants are pieds-noirs. Its demographic profile is somewhat reflective of the general pied-noir community: middle-class and aging (27% of the town is made up of retirees). The table below summarizes recent election results in Carnoux-en-Provence:

Main elections in Carnoux-en-Provence since 1995

	P-1995 (runoff)	P-2002 (runoff)	L-2002 (runoff)	R-2004 (runoff)	P-2007 (runoff)	L-2007	R-2010 (runoff)	C-2011 (runoff)
Left+EXG	25.3% (29.1%)	29.4%	23.3%	31.1% (32.4%)	23.1% (28.3%)	17.6%	31.2% (30.3%)	23.9%
Centre	Balladur 21.7%	8.7%			14.8%	7.8%	5.1%	5.2%
Right	26.9% (70.9%)	29% (66%)	49.4% (70.6%)	35.8% (41.7%)	45.9% (71.7%)	64.3%	33.2% (41.5%)	30.6% (48.5%)
Far-Right	26%	33% (34%)	26% (29.4%)	33% (26%)	16.4%	10.1%	30.6% (28.2%)	40.3% (51.5%)

If we treat our ‘symbol community’ as a fair representation of pieds-noirs in France, which it perhaps isn’t but which seems like an accurate representation, we can form some basic observations:

For the left, remarkable stability at low levels of support, which are not even broken by ‘red waves’ such as the 2004 and 2010 regional elections. Pieds-noirs might have opted for Mitterrand over the “traitor” in 1965, but the left has never been the first choice for most pieds-noirs. Around the time of the exodus, the Socialist mayor of Marseille, Gaston Defferre had, in not so polite terms, suggested that they go “readapt elsewhere”. The PCF, which favoured Algerian independence before anybody else, was long hostile towards the pieds-noirs. Unsurprisingly, the PCF, which held Carnoux’s constituency until 1999, always performed well below average in Carnoux.

For the centre, save for the exceptional “not-so-centrist” Balladurian vote in 1995 and Bayrou’s “not-so-centrist” electorate in 2007, a general absence from the electoral game. The post-UDF centre, which we can call a “humanist Christian centre-right”, has never appealed to pieds-noirs. The Giscardian RI had some support with pieds-noirs on the back of anti-Gaullism, but Bayrou’s MRP-CDS tradition has never had a natural base with the pied-noir electorate.

The right has tended to be the main rival to the far-right. Against the far-right, it can garner the support of the bulk of the first round left and centre; against the left, it can take the bulk of the far-right’s first round support (not much gaucho-lepenisme for the pieds-noirs). Chirac performed decently in Carnoux in 1995 and 2002 (in the first rounds), but Nicolas Sarkozy (43.4%) clearly took a significant amount of support from Le Pen in 2007. This is not unsurprising, given that mixed with Sarkozy’s appeal to pieds-noirs specifically he generally picked up the most FN votes in those areas, like Carnoux, where the FN vote is predominantly right-wing and fairly middle-class petit bourgeois. In the 2010 regional elections, the UMP’s resistance was surprisingly strong. Perhaps there was a small ‘boost’ for Thierry Mariani, the UMP’s top candidate in PACA, who has been vocal on the issue of recognition and memorial laws for pieds-noirs. In legislative elections, both in 2002 and 2007, the right usually performs very strongly. There is likely considerable cross-over support from Le Pen voters to the constituency’s right-wing deputy since 1999, Bernard Desflesselles (UMP).

The far-right has been very strong in Carnoux. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen won 34% in the runoff (only 18% nationally). Even more spectacular was 2011, when the FN’s candidate took 51.5% of the votes in Carnoux (40.1% in the canton) in a two-way runoff against the incumbent NC general councillor. There might have been some first-round left-wing voters who voted against Sarkozy by voting FN in the runoff. Save for 2007 and 2011, the FN’s general range has been between 25% and 30%. In 2007, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as pointed out above, clearly lost many of his 2002 supporters to Sarkozy and lost more to abstention and the UMP in the subsequent legislative elections.

The 2012 elections will prove interesting in the pied-noir community, and in Carnoux-en-Provence. 50 years later, the impact of France’s last colonial conflict still rears its head electorally.

Political Profile: Vendée

In the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections of April-June 2012, this blog will look at some of the most interesting departments, profiling their political preferences, past and present. The second department to be profiled is the Vendée.

The name Vendée is due to mean something to almost all students of French history and society. In history, the name Vendée is intricately connected with the counter-revolutionary conservative, monarchist and clerical chouannerie (1794-1800). To contemporaries, the Vendée can evoke the image of a backwoods rural, mystical and very conservative bulwark. The man which has represented the Vendée in the French political arena, Philippe de Villiers, has conformed to this stereotype and broad image of his department. Once again, the reality is not that simple. The Vendée is not a cohesive bloc and the nature of its conservatism is often misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Geography

Geographic map of the Vendée (source: CG85)

Traditionally, the Vendée can be divided into three broad regions. Entering the Vendée from the Charentes, one meets the marais poitevin, a large area of marshland which covers the far south of the Vendée (Luçon, Chaillé-les-Marais), northern Charente-Maritime (Marans) and parts of the Deux-Sèvres (Niort). The area in its two thirds is now composed of dried marsh largely used for agriculture, while a third of the marsh remains a wet marsh noted for its canals and maze of islets.

Moving further north, one enters the plaine poitevine (or plaine vendéene), often referred to simply as ‘the plain’. The plaine is an exceptionally flat openfield region, devoid of trees and hedges. The cereal and wheat plains of the plaine resemble those of the Beauce in Eure-et-Loir more than they do their immediate neighbor to the north.

The two-thirds of the Vendée are covered by le bocage vendéen, which is the department’s most well-known region and the region from which the political and social stereotypes stem from. More hilly, but not mountainous (the highest peaks are roughly 290m), the bocage’s landscape is famous for its mystical maze of fields divided by hedges and isolated from main roads. André Siegfried described the bocage as a rugged, charming landscape breaking the monotonous plains, a mysterious region of trees, high edges and hidden lanes hiding houses and farms. In another stark contrast to the cereal fields of the plain, the bocage is largely a land of breeding and grazing (élevage) of granivorous and herbivorous animals.

The bocage can be treated be as a homogeneous ensemble for our non-geographic purposes, but it is still worthwhile to point out its two main regions and the non-bocage islands within the northern two-thirds of the Vendée. The bocage is subdivided into the more hilly and even more mystical haut bocage in northeastern Vendée (Montaigu, Les Herbiers, Mortagne) and the flatter bas bocage. The bocage does not cover the entirety of the department.

In the northwest confines of the department on the border with Loire-Atlantique, the marais breton, which is Breton in name only, is a dried marshland similar to the marais poitevin. The island of Noirmoutier, whose landscape resembles that of the plain, is often attached to this region. A smaller marshland exists around Les Sables-d’Olonne. Around Chantonnay, surrounded by the bocage on all sides, the flatter and fairly tree-less fields of the plains can be found at a smaller scale, forming what can be called the limestone island of Chantonnay.

Limestone because these three geographic regions form three geological regions. The marais poitevin is a quaternary region (terrain quarternaire), the plains a jurassic limestone (calcaire) while the bocage forms the southern reaches of the much wider Armorican Massif (massif armoricain), which covers all of Brittany and most of the inner inland west. The massif armoricain‘s dominant rock is granite, as opposed to the limestone of the plains. The border between the plain and bocage is often defined as part of the boundary between western France and the rest of France.

Two other regions can be added to our overview of the Vendée’s geography in a political context: the coast and the region of La-Roche-sur-Yon. The coastal region forms a fairly cohesive bloc nowadays, and politically it is important to differentiate it from both the bocage and the plains-marshland. A region of sand dunes and sunny beaches, the Vendéan coast is nicknamed the ‘Côte de Lumière’. The island of Noirmoutier but also L’Île-d’Yeu, 25km off the coast, are often included in the coastal region. Finally, in a day and age where true rural areas are few and far between, it is important to differentiate the Vendée’s political capital, La-Roche-sur-Yon from its neighbors in the bocage. An artificial city built from scratch by Napoléon, its political impact has been fairly minimal in the past, but for our purposes, we must insist on the place of the city but also its suburban belt, which forms a circle all around it, extending south to the border with the plains, north to the confines of the departments and east to Les Essarts.

Political Representation and Institutions

The Vendée has been represented by five deputies since 1986, and its constituencies were not altered by the Marleix redistricting of 2009, meaning that the Vendée will continue to use the Pasqua redistricting of 1986. The Vendée has been redistricted only thrice since Napoleon III was defeated at Sedan: in 1875, in 1958 and in 1986! Between 1875 and 1958, the Vendée returned six deputies (two deputies apiece from the three arrondissements of La Roche, Les Sables and Fontenay-le-Comte) but this fell to only four deputies between 1958 and 1986.

The Vendée’s constituencies in terms of their coherency and homogeneity are a mix of good and bad. Charles Pasqua drew up a coherent coastal constituency (the third constituency) which the two insular cantons and the coast as far south as Les Sables. The coast, as mentioned above, forms a cohesive political and economic bloc and splitting the coast into two or more constituencies would hardly have made sense. That was the way it was in 1958 as well. Of course, from the right’s perspective, keeping the coast together was not something which was tough to do: it was politically advantageous to build such a constituency. In the northeast, the fourth constituency, is also fairly coherent, centered in the haut bocage and its surroundings.

Similar comments can more hardly be made, however, for the first and second constituencies. In the purest French tradition, and remiscient of Saskatoon and Regina in Canada, the current map splits the city of La-Roche-sur-Yon’s two overpopulated cantons into two different constituencies. The northern canton joins Challans, Les Essarts, Palluau, Le Poiré-sur-Vie and Rocheservière while the south joins Chantonnay, Mareuil-sur-Lay-Dissais, La Mothe-Achard, Moutiers-les-Mauxfaits and Talmont-Saint-Hilaire. Splitting these cities is not indispensable; a more coherent constituency, both socially and economically, could be created by reuniting the city and adjoining suburban cantons to such a seat. It could end up a bit oversized, but that’s largely because the two urban cantons are oversized. Of course, a coherent urban constituency both in 1986 and 2009 would have run contrary to the right’s political desires.

The Vendée has returned a delegation dominated entirely by the right in every legislative election since 1993. The Vendée has three senators, who were last elected in 2004. The Vendée has never elected a PS Senator in its history and all three senate seats are held by the right.

The Vendée’s general council has 31 members, renewed by halves every four years up till this point. The right has governed the general council with an overwhelming majority since the Liberation, and while it has been governed by republicans, the Vendée’s general council – as far as I am aware – has never been led by the left. The right currently holds 26 seats to the left’s 5 seats, which is roughly where the left’s ceiling has stood since the 1990s. The general council is overwhelmingly dominated by divers droite members (DVD), right-wing independents, largely rural-based, who hold 19 seats against only 1 for the UMP and 4 for the MPF. The president of the general council since 2010 is Senator Bruno Retailleau (DVD).

The Vendée’s 31 cantons exhibit an acute case of malapportionment. La Roche-sur-Yon is divided into two cantons (Nord and Sud) which also include neighboring suburban communities. The Nord canton has a population of 44,943 – about 25,000 over the theoretical ideal number of 20,000 – while the Sud canton has 33,944. Other cantons also exhibit such malapportionment: the canton of Les Sables-d’Olonne has a population of 47,026, Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie has 44,383 and Montaigu has 31,735. On the other hand, a handful of rural cantons are massively underpopulated: 4,699 in L’Île-d’Yeu, 8,531 in Chaillé-les-Marais or 8,501 in Sainte-Hermine. Besides the division of La Roche into two cantons sometime in the past, the cantonal map of the Vendée in 2012 is identical to that of 1912.

The Vendée has 17 seats in the regional council of the Pays de la Loire, which is governed by a Vendéen, Jacques Auxiette (PS). 10 seats are held by the left, split between 6 PS, 2 EELV, 1 PRG and 1 ecologist. 7 seats are held by the right, split between 3 UMP, 3 MPF and 1 NC.

Overview of Recent Elections

Results of the 2007 presidential runoff by commune

The Vendée is a right-wing stronghold at all levels of government. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) won 57.06% of the vote against 42.94% for Ségolène Royal (PS), making the Vendée 4% more right-wing than nationally. The fourth constituency (60%) and the third constituency (62%) often tend to be the most right-leaning constituencies.

No left-wing presidential candidate has won a majority of the votes in the Vendée. François Mitterrand (PS) came closest to doing that in his 1988 landslide re-election, when he took 46.06% to Jacques Chirac’s 53.94%. This gives the impression of a long-time right-wing stronghold, but when we expand our analysis to presidential elections since 1965, we find that the Vendée has trended sharply towards the left since 1965. In 1965, when Charles de Gaulle won 71.15% of the vote in the Vendée, the department was 16.65% more right-wing than France. In 1974, it was 16.27% more right-wing and in 1988 it was only 7.92% more right-wing. The major shift took place between 1995 and 2007. Chirac won 60.5% of the votes in the Vendée in 1995, 7.82% more than his national result.

On April 22, 2007; the Vendée gave Sarkozy 29.7% of the vote, less than the 31.18% he won nationally. An underperformance due, of course, to the native-son candidacy of Philippe de Villiers (MPF) who placed fourth with 11.28% (he won 2%) nationally, a result far below that which he won in his first presidential candidacy in 1995, when he won his home department with some 22% of the vote. Royal won 21.7%, against 25.9% nationally. François Bayrou (UDF) outperformed his national average in the Vendée, with 20.77% of the vote against 18.6% nationally. Jean-Marie Le Pen won only 6.46%, below his 10.4% nationally. In 2002, Jacques Chirac won the Vendée with 24.9% against 14.8% for Lionel Jospin and 11.8% for Jean-Marie Le Pen. In 1995, it was de Villiers who won the Vendée with 22%, with Edouard Balladur placing second with 20.2%. Chirac won 18.2%, placing fourth behind Jospin (19.5%).

In European elections, the Vendée stands out the most from the rest of France, having voted for right-wing lists supported or led by Philippe de Villiers in all Euros since 1994. Even in 2009, when de Villiers’ MPF-CPNT lists performed poorly nationally, he won 33% of the vote against 22.5% for the UMP. The PS placed a distant third with 12.8%, against 11.9% for their Green rivals.

In the 2010 regional elections, the UMP won 37.8% (against 32.8% in the region) against 34.9% (against 34.4% in the region) for the PS in the first round. The EELV list, with 10.6%, underperformed its regional showing of 13.6%. The FN list, with 6.8%, also underperformed its regional average (7%) as did a PG-PCF list which won only 3.55% against 5% in the region. In the runoff, the left won 50.29% to the right’s 49.71%; while in the region as a whole the left was victorious with 56.39% of the votes.

The Vendée’s political inclination can still be summarized as being heavily right-wing, with a strong base for its favourite son’s party, the MPF. However, the left has tended to break into the right’s historical hegemony at all levels. Yet, treating the Vendée as an homogeneous entity is still incorrect.

Regional Voting Patterns

% vote for Nicolas Sarkozy, 2007 runoff; divided by geographic region

Voting patterns in the Vendée are pretty heavily regionally-based, with our aforementioned geographic regions often carrying a pretty clear and consistent political orientation, which in some cases has hardly changed since the days of André Siegfried, whose political description of the Vendée and the rest of western France in 1913 remains one of the greatest books ever written about elections and political behaviour in France.

The Vendée straddles the border of western France and the rest of France. This border is formed by the line dividing the plaine from the bocage, a line which is not only an artificial man-made border which in the end means little on the ground but is a crucial line which divided, in the past at least, two worlds. We touched on some of the distinctions between these two geographic regions of the Vendée in our geographic overview of the department. From a political standpoint, there are a number of additional distinctions to make about this line which divides these two regions.

Google Earth images of typical regions of the Plaine and the Bocage; both examples in the Vendée (source: Google Earth)

The line acts a natural boundary for three main socio-political or demographic factors: type of settlement, form of agriculture and religiosity. The divide, which is of course also a geological divide, separates nucleated population from dispersed population. The population of the marais and the openfield plain have traditionally been nucleated, in that the bulk of the commune’s population lived in a cohesive village and not dispersed throughout the commune’s legal boundaries. On the other hand, the bocage is very much a country of dispersed settlement. Our description of the bocage’s landscape above, as being a mystical-like maze of hedges, lanes and isolated farms, should make this seem obvious. Dispersed populations tend to live all over the commune, concentrated in tiny groupings of 3-5 farmhouses on an isolated lane or road while comparatively few people live in the commune’s main town.

While speaking in such terms in this day and age, when the bulk of population is just ‘urban’ in a way or another, is anachronistic and archaic; the effects of historical settlement patterns in forming political traditions should not be underrated. Nucleated settlements, with communal life were much concentrated into a village life, made social interactions easier and far more common. The nucleated populations were more open to new political ideas, such as republicanism or socialism, and also more resistant towards hierarchical institutions including nobility or the church. On the other hand, dispersed populations seldom had the chance to congregate and the natural isolation of habitats made such congregations difficult. In turn, newfangled political ideas faced a much tougher crowd, one which was individualistic but also far more loyal to traditional social actors including nobility or the church.

The second main divide between the two Vendées is found in the form of agriculture (le mode de faire-valoir agricole). The cereal-growing openfields of the plain has historically been a land of smallholdings, where individual farmers owned and worked their land. Of course, agriculture is no longer the employer it was a hundred years ago and the remnants of agriculture have been mechanized or concentrated into larger farms. The social relations which agriculture used to breed a hundred years ago are no longer relevant in regions such as western France. But, again, we should not underestimate the importance of these traditions in forming political traditions which have survived to this day.

On the other hand, the bocage was very much a country of grande propriété: large properties owned by a single individual or nuclear family, traditionally a noble or aristocrat. However, the bocage was at the same time a land of big property and petite exploitation indirecte which meant that while a rich noble owned the bulk of the land in a commune, he did not work his land himself and instead delegated that task to sharecroppers or farmers who worked their own tiny parcel under contract with the landowner. Thus, the bocage is a land of sharecroppers, farm workers and tenant farmers. In 1942, faire-valoir direct (often smallholders or at least those who owned and worker their land) represented only 30% of the land in the Vendée, the third lowest in France (tied with the Nord). Tenant farming (fermage) represented 44% and sharecropping (métayage) represented 26% of the land.

What can be the political and social implications of such an economic setup? André Siegfried defined the political regime of the bocage as a hierarchy in 1912. Sharecroppers and tenant farmers, timid and respectful of established hierarchy, lived in fear or at least apprehension of the landowner who, despite the patriarchal twist which their relations naturally took, could still evict a sharecropper or farmer or not renew a lease. In the bocage, the old nobility of the Ancien Régime remained socially, economically and politically predominant well into the twentieth century. However, Siegfried distinguished the Vendéan aristocracy from that of Anjou. The nobility of the bocage, Siegfried wrote, was rougher in its manners, lifestyle and culture. He wrote that there were amongst its members “plenty of boorish types, drinkers and gamblers; and especially a lot of mediocrity”. But at the same time, Siegfried noted that despite this, the aristocracy was local, rural and prestigious. Traditions of hierarchy and respect for authority made them respected figures of authority.

% of girls attending private (religious) schools in 1911-1912 (source: A. Siegfried, Tableau Politique de la France de l'Ouest)

The third factor, and one which is still relevant to this day and age, is that of religiosity. The role of religiosity in shaping one’s political behaviour in France need not be emphasized. The divide between the plain and bocage is also one of religiosity. Nucleated populations were more resistant to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Thus, the plaine poitevine became an anti-clerical region, resistant of the church and the hierarchy which it entailed until the 1960s. On the other hand, the bocage is one of the most clerical regions of France. The Catholic Church remained a dominant social and political actor well into the 1950s and 1960s in the Vendée and the influence of Catholicism (clericalism) can still be felt to this day in the bocage. The chouannerie of 1793 was very much led by the clergy rather than the aristocracy. Siegfried noted that in contrast to the Anjou, the clergy was the dominant social and political actor over the aristocracy.

The priest in the Vendée commanded tremendous political influence and authority. His word, united to that of the aristocrat, carried a great meaning and was always ensured a receptive audience. Siegfried cited fear, respectful affection, habit and devotion as the main factors in explaining the attachment of the Vendée to its priests and clergy. In 1912, the alliance of “church and castle” was far more powerful than whatever republican institutions existed on the ground, the high attendance rates of private schools is but one proof of this. While the remnants of French aristocracy only serve to provide fodder for Point de Vue in this day and age, the church maintained its direct conservative political influence over the Vendée until the 1950s or 1960s. While society has been extensively secularized and fundamentally transformed, it is undeniable that such a clerical tradition has shaped political opinions even in 2012 in a significant way.

The Marais and the Plaine

What remains of the republican traditions of the plain and the marais? Using the above map showing the vote for Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 runoff divided by commune, we can see that, outside of the coastal region, the plain and marais have retained their left-wing traditions. Only a handful of communes in the inland regions of the plain and marais gave Sarkozy a result similar to or above his departmental average (57%). The old republican stronghold of Fontenay-le-Comte gave him only 50.6% of the vote, and Royal won Saint-Hilaire-des-Loges with 54.4%. At a municipal level, Fontenay-le-Comte was the preserve of Gaullist deputy André Forens, who served as mayor between 1965 and 1981 and again between 1989 and 1995. Since 1995, however, the left has held the mayor’s office, first in the person of Jean-Claude Remaud (PRG, ex-PS) who was badly defeated by a PS candidate in 2008.

At a more macro cantonal level, Chaillé-les-Marais, located entirely in the marais, has almost always been the most left-wing canton. It is the only canton where the PCF was truly a potent political force for quite some time and it was won by Lionel Jospin even in the 2002 rout. Nicolas Sarkozy took 48.8% of the vote in the canton. He also lost neighboring Maillezais, a mixed plaine-marais canton, with 49.7% of the vote. He won 50.6% of the vote in the canton of Saint-Hilaire-des-Loges, 50.9% in the canton of Fontenay-le-Comte, 50.6% in Sainte-Hermine (mixed plaine-bocage), 51.8% in Mareuil (mixed) and 54.1% in Luçon (mixed plaine-marais-coastal). In 1912, these cantons had all been defined by Siegfried as strongly left-leaning (which meant something different in 1912).

The marais, a Bonapartist stronghold until the 1880s, transformed into a left-wing, anti-clerical republican stronghold similar to other “left-wing Bonapartist” regions such as the Charentes but unlike “conservative Bonaparist” regions such as Normandy. Siegfried noted that from its Bonapartist days, the marais had retained an appetite for populism and ‘la manière forte‘ (‘the hard way’, in a non-authoritarian way) which went a bit against the desires of the rule-bound parliamentary opportunist republicans of the era. It would be interesting to speculate about the veracity of Siegfried’s description of the attitude, and explore whether it might explain why places like Chaillé-les-Marais flirted more than once with the PCF and later carried some attachment to Gaullism.

The plaine, as Siegfried described it, a region of smallholders attached to their private property, was not particularly inclined towards Marxism or socialism in its pure form. Indeed, the plaine was long a Radical stronghold and only developed a strong attachment with the SFIO and PS at the point where French socialism replaced the Radicals in the old radical strongholds in both style and substance.

In understanding the left-wing tradition of the plain and marais, one should perhaps not understate the influence of the neighboring cities of La Rochelle and Niort on the region. Both have had an influential Protestant community, and Protestants have often been recognized as being key drivers of republicanism in early modern France. Niort and its cooperative movement has long been a Socialist stronghold, while La Rochelle’s republicanism shone on its surroundings. Both the plain and marais were closely attached to Niort and La Rochelle, in some cases some parts of the Vendée are becoming suburbs of both these cities…

The Vendée’s gradual trend to the left since the 1970s has not come primarily from the old left-wing regions of the plains or the marais. Indeed, in most of the old republican bastions of the Vendée, Nicolas Sarkozy either performed as well as, slightly better or just slightly poorer than Jacques Chirac had in 1995 – when Chirac won 60% to Sarkozy’s 57% in the department. Chirac won 52% in Fontenay-le-Comte (city) and 46.3% in Saint-Hilaire-des-Loges (city).

A left-wing tradition can still be perceived, albeit not to the same extent, in the old limestone island of Chantonnay (a plaine within the bocage). Sarkozy won 53% in Chantonnay (city) and roughly 53% in the other communes which make up the limestone island. In contrast, in the neighboring communes of the bocage, Sarkozy won between 57% and 68% of the vote. Royal seems to have performed much better than Jopsin in Chantonnay proper, taking 47% against Jospin’s 39% in 1995. But Jospin had already performed rather strongly in other parts of this “limestone island.”

The (remants of the) Bocage Vendéen and the Marais breton

The bocage, on the other hand, has retained its conservative political inclinations. However, the scope of the bocage has been diminished by major socio-demographic changes in what used to be a politically homogeneous region. The bocage, in its traditional sense as a rural or semi-rural region, has been shrunk to the confines of the haut-bocage, traditionally the most conservative part of the bocage and an embodiment of what Siegfried had called a “mystical” region of mazes, small roads and hamlets hidden behind hedges.

While the bocage is no longer as Siegfried described it one hundred years ago: agriculture barely has a presence, and it has become far more urbanized and far less isolated than it used to be. It is also a fairly working-class region: the percentage of ouvriers (manual workers) is 36% in Montaigu, 37.8% in Mortagne, 44.6% in Saint-Fulgent, 40.2% in Les Herbiers, 42.9% in Pouzauges and 41.2% in La Châtaigneraie. I do not know much about the type of ouvriers this would encompass, but most of ‘rural France’ nowadays has similarly high percentage of manual workers, employed in low-paying jobs in small towns, small industries and small businesses.

However, the bocage has always remained a devoutly Catholic region. The church no longer has any direct political influence (though it did as late as the 1960s or 1970s), but centuries of attachment to the conservative teachings and traditions of the church, the traditions of hierarchy and respect for authority and general social conservatism bred by the church certainly still carries a major influence. Few observers care to admit it these days, but to this day, in a good number of regions, a clerical tradition trumps a working-class tradition when the two coincide.

The marais breton, if geology was to be a faultless indicator of political inclination, should lean to the left like the marais poitevin. But geology is nothing more than a coincidental indicator of voting patterns. The marais breton is indeed not identical to the bocage. The land structure was, when such stuff mattered, far more divided and home to a coincidence of small property and larger property. But in other aspects it is closer to the bocage: the habitat is fairly dispersed, and it has always been a clerical Catholic region. It has always been a traditionally right-wing region.

Nicolas Sarkozy won his best results in the bocage. He took over 60% of the vote in a good numbers in the bocage, performing best (65.1%) in the canton of La Châtaigneraie, and also won 64% in Saint-Fulgent, 61.4% in Mortagne, 60.5% in Les Herbiers and 60.4% in Rocheservière. He also won 59% in Pouzauges and 56.8% in Montaigu. In the marais breton, he took 62% in Palluau, 61.7% in Challans and 63% in Beauvoir-sur-Mer.

Results of the 1995 presidential runoff by commune

However, Nicolas Sarkozy’s performance in the bocage was far less impressive than that of other right-wing presidential candidates in the past. Case in point, Jacques Chirac’s impressive performance in the bocage in 1995. He won 70.1% of the vote in the fourth constituency (Montaigu), which covers the heart of the bocage and is traditionally one of the most conservative constituencies in France (it was represented by Philippe de Villiers for years). In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy won only 59.96% of the vote. Ségolène Royal did about 10 percentage points better than Jospin in 1995, but far more impressive was that she even did better than François Mitterrand in 1988: 40% to 36.7% for Mitterrand in 1988 (in the whole of France, she performed about 8 percentage points lower than Mitterrand).

Cantonal results are not available for 1995, but at the communal level, to name just a few examples and draw comparisons to 1995: Chirac won 60.9% in Montaigu (commune), Sarkozy got 55%. Chirac won 70% in Les Herbiers (commune), Sarkozy took only 59.6%. Chirac won 63% in Mortagne, Sarkozy won only 53.9%. These are only a few examples in the larger urban areas, Sarkozy’s under-performance was even more pronounced in more rural areas. He was often down 10% or more from Chirac’s 1995 performance, which in many cases broke 70%, 75% or 80% of the vote. Nicolas Sarkozy did not do as poorly in the marais breton, where demographic changes are more favourable to the right.

Part of this pretty dramatic under-performance might be the result of poorer vote transfers from Philippe de Villiers’ vote to Sarkozy in 2007 than to Chirac in 1995 (this is the region where de Villiers had done best). Indeed, in Philippe de Villiers’ native commune of Boulogne (which he won in both years in the first round), Chirac won 77.2% of the vote in 1995 and Sarkozy only 55.9% in 2007. It is a bit harder to explain why Philippe de Villiers’ core electorate would have been drawn more to Chirac than to Sarkozy, given that both of those campaigns were fairly populist and not too big on the whole ‘federal Europe’ aspect which was more the affair of Balladur and Bayrou in 1995 and 2007 respectively. On the other hand, Nicolas Sarkozy likely ate up a lot of de Villiers’ 1995 electorate by the first round and what was left of Philippe de Villiers’ electorate in 2007 was far more resistant to Sarkozy, which they could logically perceive as a liberal pro-European right-winger (which was indeed Sarkozy’s image prior to 2002-2007).

Demographic changes local to the region may also explain some of this shift to the left. Besides the suburban growth of La Roche-sur-Yon, which we will discuss later, there has been some fairly strong population growth in most of the haut-bocage in the first years of the twenty-first century, likely linked to suburban/exurban growth from Nantes-Clisson and Cholet. The 1999-2008 decade saw fairly robust population growth in most of the bocage, a change from earlier decades when the rural population in the Vendée often declined.

However, another explanation is one which can be generalized to other similarly Catholic regions of France (especially neighboring Bretagne and Anjou). Voters of “Catholic tradition” – which we can define as less clerical, less practicing in these days but still influenced by a Catholic upbringing, environment and political tradition – have shifted pretty dramatically to the left in recent years (though it is a long-term process, begun in the 1980s). In the 1960s and 1970s, the bulk of the “Catholic” vote (practicing + tradition) was solidly right-wing, in part out of the fear of the atheist “Reds”. When the experience of the left in power in 1980s broke those old reflexes and fears of baby-eating communists, those voters gradually shifted to the left. After all, despite all that has been said about the Catholic Church being reactionary and so forth, the Catholic tradition often went hand-in-hand with pro-European views (in part, likely, because of the idea of ‘Europe as a Christian project’, which is not uniquely French) and more centrist views on economic matters and social policy; closer to the Christian democratic MRP tradition of the “third-way” between liberalism and socialism than to the right’s traditional liberalism.

There is also the very important matter, of course, that few people still go to church on a regular basis (and those who do are as strongly right-wing as ever). Church-attendance has dwindled almost everywhere in France since 1960s. In the 1960s, we defined “church-going” as those who went to church weekly. Today, we often define “church-going” as those who go to church monthly. As voters become less drawn to the church and its conservative inclinations, it is fairly natural that they would be more left-wing than in the past or than their parents ever were.

La Roche-sur-Yon

The most important socio-demographic evolution in the bocage is urban growth around La Roche-sur-Yon. La Roche-sur-Yon, the administrative centre of the Vendée, is a new city by European standards (200 years old) because it was an artificial creation of Napoleon. It was, for many years, as if somebody had dropped a bunch of buildings in the middle of the countryside without anybody in the countryside noticing it. It attracted, during the republican era, the government employees which formed the backbone of the republic throughout France, but the city was never a capital for the “real Vendée” (to speak like Sarah Palin). The aristocracy and the rural bourgeoisie, if it was drawn to a urban area, was drawn to Nantes, which in those years was the urban preserve of the rural aristocracy. La Roche was shunned as a republican creation, and until the 1950s-1960s, La Roche remained a fairly small urban centre (24k inhabitants in 1962) and its political impact on the surrounding region was minimal.

Since the 1960s, however, La Roche has seen major demographic growth. In 1968, following a merger with two communes, the city had a population of 36k. In 2009, it had a population of 52.2k. La Roche is similar to other cities in western France: a fairly white-collar, middle-class city with a large population of employees or middle-level managers or public servants, what we can call classes moyennes salariées (salaried middle-classes, which can encompass teachers, nurses, sales representatives, supervisors and so on). The population tends to be younger and more educated than the national average.

La Roche itself has always been a republican stronghold. The right has rarely governed the city, though the RI deputy Paul Caillaud was mayor between 1961 and 1977. Since 1977, the city has been a left-wing stronghold. Jacques Auxiette, the current PS president of the regional council, was mayor between 1977 and 2004, and since 2004 by Pierre Regnault (PS), reelected in 2008 with 50.1% of the vote by the first round. In 1995, Lionel Jospin took 53.4% of the vote, Royal won 58.4%.

However, the novelty here is that La Roche now has a pretty clear zone of suburban influence. Growth in suburban communities has been strong since the 1960s, and the extent of La Roche’s suburban circle continues to expand. The city’s suburban communities largely resemble the original core: middle-class, salaried employees, some public servants and an increasing number of young families (which is one of the only thing in which it differs from the original urban core: there are far more single couples or singles in the city than in the suburbs).

This is, in general, a trend which favours the left. Indeed, Lionel Jospin had won La Roche and a neighboring commune, but had lost (fairly narrowly) to Chirac in the suburbs. Royal, however, swept the suburbs. Jacques Chirac won 48.5% in La Ferrière, Sarkozy took 45.9%. In Mouilleron-le-Captif, the right declined from 53% to 49%. In Dompierre-sur-Yon, the right fell from 51.4% to 44.4%. In Venansault, Chirac won 58.3% but Sarkozy took only 49.5%. If you refer to the map of the Sarkozy vote in 2007 divided by region, you will quickly notice how the sub-50% performances by Sarkozy in the centre of the Vendée correspond quasi-perfectly to the La Roche-sur-Yon agglomeration. Sarkozy still won the more distant, exurban areas, but it would not be surprising to see him lose those areas in 2012 (even if he wins narrowly).

Nicolas Sarkozy proved to be a poor candidate for these types of middle-class, “socially liberal” (to use an American term) urban and suburban areas. His populist appeal was tailored far more towards lower-income, working-class or exurban pavillons in eastern France which are far less socially liberal and drawn much more towards the far-right in part because of immigration issues. The lack of a large immigrant population in the Vendée, of course, explains why such a factor is not at work. This trend towards the left was not provoked by Sarkozy, but he was not a good candidate to limit or halt this trend.

The Coast

If you recall our division of the department into regions, I felt it necessary to separate the coast from the traditional regions of the marais, plaine and bocage. When Siegfried wrote about the Vendée (and indeed the rest of the coastal west), the coast was largely a region of fishermen, most of whom were republicans. You might still have fisherman today, but the vast majority of the Vendéan coast since the 1960s has been entirely changed by the growth of coastal resort towns (the stations balnéaires), through a process often referred to in French as baléarisation. The coastal region (the ’Côte de Lumière’) saw major population growth, concentrated in regional clusters, since the late 1960s. The first wave touched the coastal communities between Les Sables-d’Olonne (which itself has been in decline since the 1960s) and Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, the second wave expanded into the coastal communities south of Les Sables-d’Olonne near Talmont-Saint-Hilaire. The resulting situation is that the whole of the coast, from Noirmoutier to L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer is a giant tourist coast, which even extends north to reach the resorts around Pornic in Loire-Atlantique.

What are the demographic results of such a phenomenon? Firstly, a very old population. Those aged above 60 can make up to 40% of the population in most of the coastal communities. Insee’s indice de vieillissement (not the median age, but a ratio between those 60+ and those 20-) gives very high numbers (the higher the number, the larger the proportion of 60+ residents vis-a-vis 20- residents) along most of the coast: 78.5 in Les Sables, 67.2 in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, 53.7 in Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, 63.7 in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, 73.3 in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, 82.4 in Jard-sur-Mer and 78.4 in L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer. Retirees often make up an absolute majority or a large plurality of residents along the coast. Secondly, a very big proportion of second homes (résidences secondaires) which indicates homes used for vacations, week-ends or other touristic purposes. Along the coast, in some of the smaller communes, they can often make up some 55-70% of the total number of the total number of houses. Thirdly, a generally affluent population, with median household incomes usually above 18,000 euros.

It is certainly no secret that the growth of resort towns, stations balnéaires, in France, is very favourable to the right. The mix of a tourism-driven economy and an old population of affluent retirees who have moved to the coasts is a perfect recipe for a strong right-wing vote. Nicolas Sarkozy won 62% in Les Sables-d’Olonne, 66.9% in Bretignolles-sur-Mer, 61.6% in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, 59.4% in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, 67.2% in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, 65.6% in Noirmoutier-en-l’Île, 62.6% in Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, 66.7% in Jard-sur-Mer, 64.6% La Tranche-sur-Mer, 63.4% in La-Faute-sur-Mer and 61.8% in L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer.

Les Sables-d’Olonne at the municipal level is the impregnable stronghold of the Gaullist (RPR) deputy Louis Guédon, who has held the city’s reins with much ease since 1980. The right has governed since 1947.

Nicolas Sarkozy performed slightly better (or equal to) Chirac in most of the resort towns. Using our same sample of towns, using 1995 results instead we find Chirac winning 60% in Les Sables-d’Olonne, 65.1% in Bretignolles-sur-Mer, 60.9% in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, 55.8% in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, 66% in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, 63.2% in Noirmoutier-en-l’Île, 60% in Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, 57.3% in Jard-sur-Mer, 65% La Tranche-sur-Mer, 60.3% in La-Faute-sur-Mer and 60.2% in L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer. Nicolas Sarkozy was a fairly good candidate for resort towns, though Jacques Chirac was too.

Europe and abstention

The Vendée’s attitude towards Europe as embodied by the 1992 Maastricht and 2005 TCE can be summarized as being “divided” but when you pause for a more detailed look, we find some rather interesting contrasts between the two votes. In 1992, the Vendée rejected Maastricht with 50.3% voting against. In 2005, the Vendée approved the TCE with 50.2% voting in favour. A result which further amuses when one considers that one of the biggest cheerleaders of the no in both years was Philippe de Villiers. In both referendums, 1992 and 2005, the Vendée voted for the option which lost nationally, and more impressively, was the only department to vote against Maastricht in 1992 but in favour of the TCE in 2005.

I am one of those who subscribes to the view that both referendums were fought heavily along class lines. But this explanation cannot be everything, as the Vendée shows. A side-by-side analysis of a map of the 1992 and 2005 results at a communal level reveals interesting contrasts between both years, with some communes switching allegiances in sync with the national mood (yes in 1992, no in 2005) but a good number also switching allegiances ‘out of sync’ with the French mood (no in 1992, yes in 2005). This also happened at a constituency level: the second constituency (Roche-Sud) voted in favour in 1992 (53%) but against in 2005 (50.4%). Likewise in the fifth constituency (Fontenay) which was in favour in 1992 (51.3%) but against (53.5%) in 2005. One constituency voted against in 1992 but in favour in 2005 – the fourth constituency (Montaigu) which was against in 1992 with 51.6% but in favour in 2005 with a full 55.7%. What is remarkable about the fourth constituency? It is one of the most right-wing constituencies east of Neuilly-sur-Seine, but it is also the former constituency of Philippe de Villiers.

The communal map reveals the same patterns: the base of the yes vote shifted between 1992 and 2005, from a base largely concentrated in La Roche and Fontenay in 1992 to a base heavily concentrated in the haut-bocage in 2005. The coast and marais breton remained solid in their opposition, while La Roche-sur-Yon’s urban area remained consistently in favour. Why this shift, especially in the fourth constituency, which would have been expected to follow the opposition of its favourite son in 2005.

In French referendums, some voters answer the question which is asked, but for a lot of voters, they answer the person who asked that question (usually they don’t give a pleasant answer to said person). This was the case in 2005, when the referendum also took the form of a protest vote against the Chirac-Raffarin governing duo; but in 1992, there was also a strong right-wing protest vote against the Mitterrand presidency (which was very unpopular by then). In the plaine in 1992, we find that the more left-wing areas around Fontenay voted in favour, but the solidly right-wing areas of the bocage from Montaigu down to La Châtaigneraie voted against. Philippe de Villiers likely played a role in boosting that opposition in 1992, given that the ultimate Villieriste stronghold – his birthplace (Boulogne) was more than 70% against. I would probably describe the opposition of the bocage in 1992 as falling into the second category – people who answer the person who asked the question rather than the question itself – given that Catholicism goes hand-in-hand with a pro-European vote.

Something which 2005 proved, but which might have exaggerated given that right-wing voters felt no contradiction in voting yes to a “right-wing referendum” unlike voting yes to a “left-wing referendum” in 1992. The 2005 map shows a solid block of support in the most conservative parts of the bocage and haut-bocage in eastern Vendée, from Montaigu down to La Châtaigneraie and extending even into the villieriste strongholds in Les Essarts (but Boulogne voted against, though far less enthusiastically). The 2005 results were certainly quite a rebuke of the local favourite son, whose social conservatism might be well in sync with the Vendéan electorate but whose Euroscepticism is slightly out of place in a traditionally pro-European department.

La Roche-sur-Yon remained consistent, more or less, in its support for Europe in both 1992 and 2005. The no vote was stronger in 2005, especially in the less affluent southern commuter belt communities, but remained strong in the urban core and the more affluent and middle-class professional northern commuter belt communities. In this case, demographics trumped partisan roots: urban-suburban salaried middle-classes, young and educated families and some public servants can be expected to be fairly pro-European.

The coast and the marais breton were consistent, more or less, in their opposition on both years. In 2005, some resort towns such as Saint-Jean-de-Monts, Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, Les Sables-d’Olonne and La Tranche-sur-Mer switched from opposition in 1992 to support in 2005 (in this case, partisanship is likely the cause). Outside the major coastal centres (the ‘big’ resorts which draw most tourists), small resort towns or retirement communities have generally tended to be fairly Eurosceptic in both years.

In terms of abstention, the Vendée is a fairly civic department. In 2007, abstention in the first round was 11.9% and 12.7% in the runoff (it was 16% nationally). In 2002, abstention was 24% in the first round against 28% nationally. As is usual, turnout is usually lower in large urban areas (86.5% in La Roche-sur-Yon in 2007), but also along the coast where the population fluctuates a lot and where voters are probably less politicized, less drawn to vote. Turnout was 84.8% in the canton of Les Sables in 2007, 84.8% in Challans or 85.7% in Saint-Jean-de-Monts. The two islands also have below-average turnout. Turnout is much higher in the more closely-knit small towns of the bocage, where the clerical tradition has also had its impact on boosting turnout. Turnout was 89.5% in Montaigu (canton), 89.9% in Saint-Fulgent, 89.6% in Le Poiré-sur-Vie and 89.3% in Rocheservière to name just a few examples. The left-wing plaine and marais usually have fairly average turnout, but sometimes they join the ranks of low turnout cantons.

Partisan Bases of Support

The MPF

% vote for Philippe de Villiers, 2007 (source: geoclip)

Philippe de Villiers is probably the most well-known Vendéan politician, and, as said above, he continues the stereotype of the Vendée as an ultra-conservative rural backwater which elects weirdos like l’agité du bocage. The Viscout Philippe de Villiers, who had served as secretary of state in the Chirac-II government between 1986 and 1987, was originally a member of the UDF’s liberal wing (the PR) before founding his political movement, Combat pour les valeurs in 1991 and the MPF in 1994. He served in the National Assembly for most years between 1987 and 2004, served as an MEP for various terms and since 2004, and most importantly he was the president of the general council of the Vendée between 1988 and 2010.

Since his resignation from the departmental presidency, the fate of the MPF is uncertain. It still has two deputies, Véronique Besse (who replaced de Villiers in 2004) and Dominique Souchet (who won the seat held by Joël Sarlot in a 2008 by-election) and one Senator (Philippe Darniche) whose jobs are fairly solid, but it is left with only 5 general councillors and the only up-and-rising politician in the MPF, Bruno Retailleau (de Villiers’ former right-hand man), who is the current president of the general council, broke from the MPF after a bad spat with the Viscount following the latter’s veto to the former’s entrance into the Fillon cabinet. In the 2010 by-election to replace Philippe de Villiers in the canton of Montaigu, the MPF mayor of Montaigu, Antoine Chéreau, was surprisingly defeated by a DVD candidate. Outside the department, the MPF also finds itself with a very limited base: Philippe de Villiers’ alliance with the hunters and Declan Ganley in 2009 only saved his own seat in the EU Parliament, and the only major MPF base outside the Vendée (in Orange, Vaucluse with ex-FN deputy Jacques Bompard and his wife) is no more since Bompard left the party in 2010. Guillaume Peltier, Philippe de Villiers’ very own young rising star (another ex-FN element), realized that his star could rise more within the UMP than in the dwindling MPF.

Before commenting on Philippe de Villiers and the MPF’s base in the Vendée, it is crucial to point out that there is a strong favourite son vote for Philippe de Villiers which gives the MPF results above its national average everywhere in the department. In 2007, Philippe de Villiers won only 11.3% of the vote, down from 22% in 1995. But at the level of Euro elections, the Vendée has been unique in that it has voted for the villieriste list in all EU elections since 1994 – even in 2009 it won 33% of the vote.

At any rate, it is still worthwhile to break the favourite son vote down: where is it highest, where is it lowest?

The core of the MPF electorate is in the bocage and haut-bocage, which is not only Philippe de Villiers’ constituency and homebase but also the most conservative region of the department. Philippe de Villiers is not reflective of the traditional Catholic electorate in France, given that his base is with the fairly small and unrepresentative sample of devout church-goers rather than those of “Catholic tradition” who are more likely to vote for the UDF.

In 2007, he won 16.1% in the canton of Saint-Fulgent, 13.2% in his canton of Montaigu, 12.8% in his brother’s canton of Les Essarts, 12.6% in Les Herbiers, 14.9% in Pouzauges, 12.4% in Mortagne, 13.5% in La Châtaigneraie and 12.7% in Chantonnay. But the only commune he won in 2007 with some 22% was his birthplace of Boulogne, in Les Essarts. The MPF also performed well in the inland regions of the bocage to the east of La Roche and the marais breton. In 2007, Philippe de Villiers won 15.1% in Beauvoir-sur-Mer, 14.1% in Palluau, 13.1% in Challans, 12.7% in Saint-Jean-de-Monts and 12% in Talmont and La Mothe-Achard. He did poorly in Les Sables (9.4%) and in other wealthy resort communities. La Roche (only 5.3%) is very anti-villieriste as are its inner suburbs. The plaine and marais, especially the left-wing communes, are resistant to the MPF.

In 2002, Christine Boutin’s support was rather reflective of the traditional MPF electorate.

The FN

The FN has usually been fairly weak in the Vendée, which proves that rock-ribbed conservatism doesn’t necessarily equate itself with a strong FN vote. Jean-Marie Le Pen won 11.75% in the Vendée in 2002, against 16.9% nationally. In 2007, he won 6.5%, against 10.4% nationally. In 2010, the FN list took 6.8% of the vote.

The 2002 results were probably boosted a bit by the absence of Philippe de Villiers’ name on the ballot, leading some of the most conservative MPF voters to vote for Le Pen – who did indeed win 15.5% in Boulogne! However, taking 2002 as a fairly typical example of a FN at its peak, Le Pen won his best showings along the coast. Using a cantonal level, he won 15.6% in Talmont, 15.5% in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, 15.1% in Beauvoir-sur-Mer, 15.1% in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, 15% in both islands and 14.7% in Les Sables. His performances in the bocage, La Roche and around Fontenay were far less impressive, even by local standards. He won only 7.6% in the city of La Roche.

Given that “the FN vote in the Vendée” is not the subject of much analysis, it is hard to describe in much detail what type of FN vote is found in the department, especially along the coast. Based on my “four worlds of FN voters”, described in depth here, I would be tempted to qualify the FN vote as something between a type 1/type 1-bis and type-2 vote, with perhaps an added element of an undescribed “bourgeois right-wing vote” which is a cyclical protest vote by conservative right-wingers against the right-wing government of the day (Chirac was hardly popular in 2002). Indeed, a type-1 classification would make some sense given that Le Pen’s vote share in the third constituency (the coast) fell by more than it did nationally in 2007 (one of the rare Atlantic coast constituencies to do so), indicating that Sarkozy won a good share of the FN voters in that region.

The centre

As a Catholic department, the Vendée denotes itself by an above average vote for centrist candidates or parties of centrist tradition (the UDF). Jean Lecanuet in 1965 won 24% in the department, placing second (ahead of Mitterrand) and above his national average (15.9%). In 1988, Raymond Barre won 24% against 16.5% nationally. Even in 1995, rivaled by a candidate with roots in the UDF (but in the liberal faction, the PR), Balladur won 20.2% against 18.5% nationally, and placed 2 percentage points behind de Villiers, who won the department. In 2002, François Bayrou won 8.4% against 6.8% nationally. In 2007, Bayrou took 20.8% against 18.6% despite a Villiers who took 11.3% in the department, concentrated in the regions where the UDF usually performed best.

Bayrou’s electorate in 2007 was in some cases quite unlike the traditional UDF electorate, but in the Vendée his performance is rather typical of Christian democratic candidates. At a cantonal level, Bayrou’s cohesive base was in the haut-bocage. He won 26.5% in Mortagne, 27.8% in Les Herbiers, 24.4% in Montaigu, 24.4% in Les Essarts and 23.1% in Pouzauges. Balladur had also performed fairly well this region. The bocage is a Catholic region, which goes hand-in-hand with a strong centrist vote. Bayrou and the UDF is far more reflective of the traditional Catholic tradition electorate in France than Philippe de Villiers is. Bayrou (and Balladur)’s performances is made all the more impressive by the fact that Philippe de Villiers did best in these regions. In the bocage, he often placed second ahead of Royal.

Bayrou also did well in the far less clerical (to say the least!) but “socially liberal” and moderate urban-suburban areas of La Roche-sur-Yon. He won 21.4% in La Roche and did even better in the city’s affluent northern suburbs: 26.3% in Mouilleron-le-Captif, 23.5% in Venansault, 25% in La Ferrière and 24.9% in Dompierre-sur-Yon. In some communes, such as Mouilleron-le-Captif, he placed second – but this time ahead of Sarkozy. In this urban area, Bayrou touched a new(er) electorate for the centre: a professional, urban, educated, young and middle-class electorate which is not solidly left-wing but where the traditional right (especially the Sarkozyst UMP) is not the preferred alternative.

Bayrou did fairly well in the inland marais breton, but did poorly along the coast and in the left-wing plaine and marais. Coastal resort communities almost always favoured the RPR and Gaullists over the UDF. The UDF’s electorate in the inner west is usually a traditional, rural and Catholic vote. Resort towns do not have a natural inclination towards the UDF, but Balladur – not your typical UDF candidate – did well along the coast and in the resort communities. Then again, when it came to the wealthiest of right-wing voters, Balladur performed much better than Chirac in that “right-wing primary” of 1995.

The Greens

The Greens perform poorly in the Vendée: it is too rural, its urban areas are not large enough and not universally green-favourable and the coastal resort towns don’t like the Greens. In 2009, the Greens won 11.9%, placing third behind the PS (12.8%) and below its 16.3% national average. The Greens won 10.6%, against 13.6% in the region.

The Green electorate was heavily urban. In 2009, the Greens won 19.6% in La Roche-sur-Yon and did well in the city’s commuter communities, especially those north of the city. Elsewhere, the Greens did well near Montaigu which increasingly part of Nantes-Clisson’s larger suburban influence. The Greens did equally as well in the southeast of the department which is by now part of Niort’s suburban belt. On the other hand, the Greens did very poorly in rural areas – bocage, marais and plaine alike – and also performed poorly along the coast (especially the wealthiest resort towns). The Greens’ environmental positions is hardly a good match to these focal points of baléarisation.

The PCF

It should not a shock to anyone that the Vendée is one of the PCF’s worst departments. Marie-George Buffet won 0.9% (and 1.9% nationally) and Robert Hue in 1995 won 4.8% (and 8.6% nationally). In 2009, the FG won only 2.7% in the department against 6.5% nationally. The PCF’s only relevant bases in the department are the left-wing areas of the marais and parts of the plaine. In 2009, the FG won 4.6% in Chaillé-les-Marais and 5.2% in L’Hermenault. It won 1.1% in Les Herbiers and Pouzauges. The PCF can also perform well in La Roche-sur-Yon proper (4.5% in 2009) and, amusingly, along the coast: 3.5% in the canton of Les Sables-d’Olonne, which had a PCF mayor between 1945 and 1947. This is most likely a core electorate made up of the few remaining fishermen in the towns along the coast.

Historical Voting Patterns

Legislative elections in the Vendée since 1871

The Vendée was a bulwark of reaction to the republican regime until the 1910s or 1920s. André Siegfried had described, in the bocage at least, a reactionary department, a land of hierarchical structures and where the nobility and clergy exerted significant political influence. Politics was conceded to be the business of the aristocrats and nobles, who only used elective office to perpetuate their hierarchical control of the region through the acquiescence and support of the Catholic Church. Elective office at all levels was usually held by aristocrats or their pawns, and often passed down from father to son. He remarked that the landscape and political attitudes of the bocage had hardly budged since the days of the chouannerie.

Between 1876 and the 1920s, the core monarchist base was found in the haut-bocage and the marais breton (Challans), the most reactionary regions and the heart of traditional Vendée. These two constituencies in the north of the department elected openly monarchist members between 1876 and 1914. By the 1880s and 1890s, being a monarchist became less fashionable and futile, leading most pragmatic conservatives to change their allegiances to one of défense catholique or even join the ranks of the republic through the ralliés (ALP). But in the Vendée, voters or rather their masters remained loyal to those die-hard reactionaries who remained loyal to the monarchy and the King until the very last day. The ALP elected only one deputy from the department, in 1914.

Challans’ constituency elected a monarchist noble, Armand Léon de Baudry d’Asson, a reactionary anti-Semitic monarchist, between 1876 and 1914. His son Armand Charles served between 1914 and 1928. Other monarchist deputies, such as Paul Antoine Charles Bourgeois, often tended to be similarly reactionary and of noble blood.

Republicans could hope to win more seats in what Siegfried called the élections d’appaisement where the blood wasn’t boiling on either side, where the issues were not as polarizing, when the government was popular and moderate, when nobody was alienated. 1881, 1893 and 1910 are examples of such elections. The right was usually demoralized, divided and unmotivated in those years. But in the élections de lutte, elections fought around a big issue which polarized the electorate, where the blood was boiling, when people hated each other’s guts and where the right was in a feisty combative mood against the godless republicans. 1876, 1877, 1885, 1898, 1902 and 1906 can be considered élections de lutte and the right invariably performed better as its mobilized its base (compare 1902 to 1893).

The marais poitevin was a Bonpartist stronghold from the 1870s till the 1890s. The constituency covering most of the marais elected Alfred Le Roux, a cabinet minister under the Second Empire, in 1877 while his son Paul Le Roux held the seat between 1881 and 1893 before serving in the Senate between 1894 and 1923. André Siegfried had described the mood in the marais as fiercely independent, populist and attached to ‘la manière forte‘ (‘the hard way’, in a non-authoritarian way). But it was an anti-clerical, left-wing Bonapartism which morphed into republicanism and radicalism fairly easily though the Boulangists and nationalists (of the 1902-1910 era) had some successes. The same constituency would later return Radical members for most of the Third Republic’s final years. In 1936, the Radicals won in most of the plaine and marais while an independent right-leaning Radical was successful in his home base of Les Sables, at that point a republican region. The bocage elected four FR deputies, representatives of the Catholic right and the most conservative of the right’s two big parties.

During the Fourth Republic and the early years of the Fifth Republic, the Vendée outside the handful of PCF or SFIO bases in the plaine, marais and La Roche was by and large a battleground between the two main factions of the French right: the Christian democrats of the MRP, locally represented by Lionel de Tinguy (deputy 1946-1958, 1962-1967) and Louis Michaud (deputy 1946-1967); and the family of the independents, “moderates” and so forth (the CNI), represented locally by Armand Quentin de Baudry d’Asson (grandson of the aforementioned monarchist, deputy from 1945 to 1958). The CNI has often been said to be the droite laïque as opposed to the Christian democrats, but there was nothing laïcard about Armand Quentin de Baudry d’Asson, the top cheerleader for Catholic private schools and often to the right of the MRP on such issues. Proportional representation allowed for the election of a SFIO member in 1945 and 1946, but the bulk of seats were divided between the independents and MRP. The two fought roughly an equal game in 1946, before Baudry d’Asson’s alliance with the Gaullists in 1951 carried him to a landslide.

In 1958, the department elected three CNI members while Louis Michaud was elected in the coastal constituency, defeating Baudry d’Asson. In 1962, Lionel de Tinguy defeated a sitting CNI member in La Roche while the Gaullists, including Vincent Ansquer in Montaigu, defeated the two other CNI members. The situation stabilized for years in 1967, with the defeat of Lionel de Tinguy by the RI mayor of La Roche Paul Caillaud and Louis Michaud’s defeat by the Gaullist Pierre Mauger, mayor of Les Sables between 1965 and 1971. André Forens, the Gaullist mayor of Fontenay-le-Comte and later UDF member defeated a sitting UDR member in 1973 but in 1981 he was defeated by Pierre Métais, the first Socialist to win a seat in the department through the single-member electoral system. Philippe Mestre (UDF-PR) was able to succeed Paui Caillaud in La Roche, defeating the PS mayor of the city since 1977, Jacques Auxiette.

Pierre Métais was able to win reelection fairly easily in a new fifth constituency in 1988, but once again it was only through strong support throughout the plaine and the marais’ cantons. The right, including Philippe de Villiers, parliamentarian since Vincent Ansquer’s death in 1987, held all other seats. By this time, the right was heavily dominated by the UDF, which elected Jean-Luc Préel in La Roche-Nord and reelected Philippe Mestre in La Roche-Sud. The RPR, with Pierre Mauger, held Les Sables, the old Gaullist fief. In 1993, Joël Sarlot (UDF) easily defeated the PS mayor of Fontenay in the fifth constituency. That same year, the RPR mayor of Les Sables since 1980, Louis Guédon, was elected in succession of Mauger. Sarlot was able to hang on by a much narrower in the vague rose of 1997. 1997 was otherwise marked by the election in La Roche-Sud of Dominique Caillaud, a UDF dissident backed by Philippe de Villiers’ ephemeral LDI.

All sitting members were easily reelected in 2002 and 2007. Véronique Besse, the MPF general councillor for Les Herbiers, succeeded Philippe de Villiers in a 2004 by-election. Joël Sarlot’ 2007 election was annulled by the Constitutional Council and he was succeeded by Dominique Souchet in 2008.

Hopefully this long post has gone a good way towards setting the facts straight and breaking the stereotypes and misconceptions about the Vendée, which is ultimately not as boring as its electoral record may indicate. Please indicate to me which departments you would like to see profiled next.

Political Profile: Savoie

In the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections of April-June 2012, this blog will look at some of the most interesting departments, profiling their political preferences, past and present. The first department to be profiled is Savoie.

When the name Savoie is evoked, the first thing which often comes to mind are ski resorts catering to an affluent clienteles and the beautiful snowy peaks of the Alps associated with skiing. Skiing and l’or blanc, however, is only part of the picture. The political reality of Savoie is rather different, hiding a fairly strong working-class presence and an interesting political evolution.

These political profiles will be broken down in a logical manner, from the basics to the details, covering the basic geography of a department, looking at its political institutions (constituencies, general councils, cantons), its general voting patterns and more detailed voting patterns in regards to the large political families.

Geography

Map of Savoie's regions and urban areas (self-made)

Savoie’s geography is largely dominated by mountains, meaning that the bulk of the department’s 410 thousand inhabitants reside either in the urbanized lowlands around Chambéry or in the valleys surrounded on both sides by mountains. Savoie can be divided fairly easily into four broad geographic regions. The bulk of the population lives in a region known as the combe de Savoie, an valley formed by the confluence of the Arc and Isère rivers. The Isère, which flows southward out of the department towards Grenoble through the Grésivaudan valley, forms a large valley extending all the way to Albertville. But Savoie’s largest city and prefecture, Chambéry, is not technically in the Isère valley. It lies to the south of the Lac du Bourget, and in a valley between the massif des Bauges and the massif de la Chartreuse. Aix-les-Bains, the department’s second largest city, lies on the shore of the Lac du Bourget. To the west, separated from the Chambéry area by the southernmost reaches of the Jura, the avant-pays savoyard is a fairly low-lying or hilly rural region.

The combe de Savoie forms the division between the two main mountainous regions of Savoie, each defined by a river valley. The Arc river, which flows south and then east, forms the Maurienne valley. The largest city in the Maurienne valley is Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, and its economy has traditionally been more dependent on industry than tourism. The Isère river, which continues by flowing south from Albertville to Moûtiers and then eastwards towards Bourg-Saint-Maurice, forms a valley known as the Tarentaise. This region has become heavily defined by ‘white gold’ which has made the riches of ski resorts including Val-d’Isère or Courchevel. The mountain range lying to the north of the Isère is known as the massif de Beaufort.

Political Representation and Institutions

Savoie has been represented by only three deputies since 1945, but following the 2009 Marleix redistricting, Savoie will be electing a fourth deputy in June 2012. It elected four members between 1928 and 1936, and elected five members between 1876 and 1914. The department was redistricted in 1875, 1927, 1958 and 1986.

A quick glance at the old (1986-2009) constituency map would give the impression of a fairly decent redistricting. In reality, the constituencies drawn by Charles Pasqua in 1986 were quite awful. The Maurienne has always defined a constituency, which was expanded in 1958 to take in the combe de Savoie around Montmélian, a fair enough compromise forced by population declines in the valley. But the 1986 redistricting split the city of Chambéry, which was probably not necessary, to give the southern and south-western cantons of the city (along with suburban La Ravoire and Cognin) to create an egregious constituency which spanned from the urban core of Chambéry to the remotest, most mountainous regions along the Italian border. The other two constituencies were less reprehensible, with the first constituency centered around Aix but taking in the rest of Chambéry, while the second constituency covered Albertville and the Tarentaise.

The 2009 redistricting, in which the department gained a seat due to rapid demographic growth in the Chambéry area, gave a chance to right old wrongs. The most logical option for a new constituency centered around Chambéry would have been one which stretches across the centre-west of the department, from the Bauges to the Chartreuse, thereby taking up the entirety of Chambéry and its suburbs (save La Ravoire) while leaving the less chambérien regions of the Isère valley out of it. The actual result is not the most optimal, though the new fourth constituency does re-unite Chambéry and some of its suburbs, but extends a bit too much to the east to take in the Isère valley cantons of Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny and Grésy-sur-Isère. Still, we can be pleased by a coherent second constituency in the Tarentaise, a purely aixoise first and a less insane third – it still borders on Chambéry, but is less reprehensible.

Savoie has returned three right-wing deputies since 1993, as it had between 1958 and 1973. Yet, between 1973 and 1993, with the exception of 1986, Savoie gave the left a 2-1 advantage in its parliamentary representation. Savoie has supplied a fair number of cabinet ministers in the past, including Pierre Cot, Louis Besson, Michel Barnier and Hervé Gaymard.

Savoie has two Senators, last renewed in 2004. It has returned one Socialist and one Gaullist to the Senate since 1995.

Savoie’s general council has 37 members. Governed by the right since 1982, the right found itself tied with the left in 2011, and the incumbent president of the general council, former cabinet minister and deputy Hervé Gaymard (UMP) was reelected in a tied vote against PS Senator Thierry Repentin thanks to seniority.

Savoie has relatively few cantons (37), which partly explains why it is fairly easy for it to switch in a wave election. There are, of course, major population disparities, between 2,604 people in mountainous Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis and 15,000 in most of the urban cantons of Chambéry and Aix (and 20,207 in La Ravoire), but this is nothing which cannot be seen elsewhere in France.

Savoie has 11 members of the regional council. The left won 7 in 2011, split between 4 PS and 3 Greens, while the UMP won 3 seats and the FN 2.

An Overview of Recent Elections

Results of the 2007 presidential runoff by commune

Savoie generally leans to the right in most elections. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) won 57.32% of the vote against 42.68% for Ségolène Royal (PS). The three constituencies taken as wholes do not show significant differences from one to the other, and Sarkozy won all three constituencies by similar margins – but he failed to break 60% in any one of them. The last left-wing candidate to win Savoie was François Mitterrand in the landslide of 1988, when he won 50.18% of the vote against 49.82% for Jacques Chirac (RPR). This gives the impression of a long-time right-wing stronghold, but digging deeper, we find that Mitterrand won Savoie in the much narrower left-wing victory of 1981 with 50.45%. Savoie was 4.3% more right-wing than the national average in 2007, and 3.8% more right-wing than the national average in 1988. But in 1974, Savoie was more evenly divided: it was 0.03% more left-wing than the national average and in 1965 it was a full 0.6% to the left of France, giving Mitterrand a fairly strong 46.07% of the vote against Charles de Gaulle.

On April 22, 2007; Savoie gave Sarkozy 33% of the vote, about 2% more than what he won nationally. Royal won 21.8%, against 25.9% nationally. François Bayrou (UDF) outperformed his national result in Savoie, with 20.1% against 18.6% nationally. Jean-Marie Le Pen, with 10.75%, barely outperformed his paltry national result of 10.4%. In 2002, however, Le Pen had prevailed over Chirac in the first round, with 19.8% (some 3% more than what he won nationally) against 18% for Chirac and only 13.1% for Lionel Jospin (PS) who did 3% worst than in the rest of the country. In 1995, Edouard Balladur won the right-wing matchup against Chirac in Savoie, with 20.3% against 18.7% for Chirac.

In the 2009 European elections, the UMP won 29.2% (slightly more than what it won nationally), while the Greens placed second with 19.9% – outperforming their national record of 16.3%. The PS, which won 16.5% nationally, won 14.5% in Savoie. The centre (8.1%) and the FN (6.6%) about matched their national results. In the 2010 regional elections, the UMP won 26.8% in the first round (against 26.4% region-wide) while the PS won 25.3% and the Greens won 19.1% (against 17.8% region-wide). The FN won 12.7%, less than the 14% it won in the region. In the runoff, Jean-Jack Queyranne’s left-wing coalition won 51.2% (a bit more than the 50.8% it won in the region as a whole) against 34.7% for the UMP and 14.1% for the FN (slightly less than in the region).

Savoie’s general political inclination can be summarized as being traditionally right-leaning, with a major far-right presence; while the left, progressively weakened in presidential elections, has a fairly significant Green component.

Regional Voting Patterns

In France, besides the usual class/income indicators, two other indicators can usually tell us a fair bit about the bases of a region’s political traditions: clericalism and the type of farming. Savoie, unlike Haute-Savoie, is not a particularly clerical save for Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis in the Haute-Maurienne. At the same time, Savoie is not either de-christianized land like parts of the Southwest and Limousin. It is not really anti-clerical in the aggressive, activist sense of the term, all while not being clerical either. Church attendance is good, but like in parts of Brittany or Normandy, the clergy’s political influence was limited and church-goers acted in independence from church actors.

The second indicator, less obvious to most observers, is that of the ‘type of farming’ or basically how the land was exploited: by sharecroppers, by tenant farmers or by owners who worked the land themselves. Like most mountainous regions, Savoie is a land of smallholders (so-called petite propriété). In 1942, 93% of the land in Savoie was directly worked and exploited by the owners themselves. For geographic regions, mountains and small valleys are hardly suitable for the larger properties which lead to sharecropping or tenant farming, both of which were all but absent from Savoie (1% and 6% respectively in 1942). The political implications of this should not be downplayed. Smallholders, especially those in mountainous regions, have tended to be the standard-bearers of the republic against reaction. Mountain villages and their inhabitants, living together in fairly nucleated environments, were more likely to live in a more homogeneous society lacking strict social hierarchy or classes.

The savoyard right finds its strongest support in the Tarentaise. In a distant past, there was likely a strong element of agrarian rural conservatism to this strength, and it can still be found in parts of Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis, but the Tarentaise is nowadays driven by ski resorts – the famous white gold. The major ski resorts in the department include Les Trois Vallées (Courchevel, Val Thorens, Méribel); Paradiski (La Plagne, Les Arcs in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Peisey-Vallandry); the prestigious Espace Killy (Tignes, Val d’Isère); and the Espace Diamant (Flumet, Notre-Dame-de-Bellecombe, near Ugine and Megève). There are also more remote ski resorts in Valloire, Valmeinier (in the Maurienne) and Val Cenis.

Ski resorts in the United States and Canada are famously allergic to conservatism, and the American equivalents of Courchevel or Val d’Isère in Colorado are Democratic strongholds. On the other hand, ski resorts in France and the rest of the Alps are strongly right-wing. Little actual research has been done, as far as I know, on this topic, but one of the main differences advanced is that skiing tends to attract a younger and more left-liberal clientele in the Americas (ski bums?) while attracting a middle-age, affluent conservative clientele in France and Europe. Certainly the ski resorts in France are generally quite affluent (especially the ‘prestigious’ ones), and there are a whole lot of secondary residences in those communes. It is doubtful, however, that people who own second homes there would vote there during presidential elections in May. The people who actually vote there are probably employed by the ski resorts or are people who live there year-round.

Whatever the cause of the conservatism of the French ski resorts, it is extremely pronounced and significant. Nicolas Sarkozy won 60% in the larger city of Bourg-Saint-Maurice, but won 79.6% in Saint-Bon-Tarentaise (Courchevel), 79.6% in Val-d’Isère, 66% in Tignes, 76% in Les Allues (Méribel), 73% in Saint-Martin-de-Belleville (Val Thorens), 70% in Valloire, 76.9% in Flumet, 75.7% in Notre-Dame-de-Bellecombe, 71% in Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis and 64.7% in Saint-Jean-d’Arves. In 2010, when the UMP in Savoie basically found itself confined to the ski hills, it still won some comparatively huge results in the vast majority of the ski resorts: 70% in Val-d’Isère, 61% in Saint-Bon-Tarentaise, 58% in Les Allues, 59% in Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, 58% in Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis, 53% in Flumet or 49.7% in Valloire.

The growth of ski resorts and their right-wing voting habits is the first major cause of the shift to the right in Savoie. In ‘rural’ mountainous Savoie, it has replaced agriculture (largely sheep herding or cattle grazing) or declining light manufacturing as the top employer.

The Maurienne, with a few exceptions (Valloire or Saint-Jean-d’Arves) has not profited as much as the Tarentaise from the ski resorts. The Maurienne has traditionally been a fairly working-class region. The industrial base is fairly diverse, ranging from iron ore mines in Saint-Georges-des-Hurtières to a small chemical industry in La Chambre to light manufacturing activities in La Rochette to aluminium in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to hydroelectric power (la houille blanche) and paper mills around the cité cheminote (a fairly common type of working-class city in France, driven by rail depots or famously left-wing railroad workers) of Modane. But the industrial base of the Maurienne has been in stark decline in recent years, and the region has been aging rather quickly. A RioTinto-Alcan aluminium plant in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne is threatened with closing.

Traditionally left-wing, the Maurienne has increasingly flirted with the right and far-right in recent years. The left has retained a hold on a number of smaller working-class villages in the valley, including Fourneaux, Saint-Etienne-de-Cuines and Arvillard, but Nicolas Sarkozy still performed rather well in the Maurienne for a right-wing candidate. He won Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne (56.6%) and La Chambre (59.3%), but both hade preferred Chirac in 1995 as well. He lost Fourneaux, an historic left-wing stronghold, but his 48% were better than Chirac’s 44.9% in 1995. In Saint-Georges-des-Hurtières, a PCF stronghold, he won only 40% but still won 5% more than Chirac in 1995. An aging population, industrial decline and the growth of ski resorts explains the left’s decline in this region.

At a local level, the right ended over 40 years of left-wing dominance in the canton of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in 2001 and in 2008, the UMP took the town from the left. La Chambre is still ruled by the right and until 2011 the canton was, since 1985, the preserve of right-wing power broker Daniel Dufreney (CNIP) despite having been a PS-PCF battleground since the Liberation. The canton of Aiguebelle, a PCF stronghold, has remained far more resistant, having been held by the PCF, very much dominant in the iron ore mining town of Saint-Georges-d’Hurtières (Robert Hue won it in 2002!), since 1976.

% vote for Lionel Jospin by commune, 1995 runoff (source: lafranceelectorale)

The combe de Savoie and the Tarentaise valley south of Albertville also has its share of working-class areas. I don’t know much about the details of its industrial base, but the railroad from Grenoble likely plays a role in the whereabouts of Montmélian while there is some light manufacturing or random factories, timber mills or railroad depots in working-class areas to the south of Albertville in the Tarentaise (La Bâthie, Cevins, La Léchère, Grignon, Esserts-Blay, Saint-Marcel). Royal performed fairly well in the working-class areas of the Tarentaise, but in 1995, Lionel Jospin had performed strongest in a cohesive chain of towns in the Isère valley, but in 2007, Sarkozy had in good part broken that chain, save a few towns around Montmélian and south of Albertville.

Albertville is a fairly affluent middle-class community with a strong manufacturing base. It voted 54.7% for Sarkozy, but in 1995 it had given Chirac nearly 56% of the vote. Albertville has been shifting to the left in recent years, like the bulk of similarly well-off middle-class professional urban areas in France. In 2008, the PS ended decades of right-wing dominance in the city with a surprise victory over an incumbent UMP mayor. The left won 52% of the vote in the 2010 regional elections. Albertville’s more affluent suburban communities to the north are traditionally strongly right-leaning.

The urban influence of the cities of Albertville and Chambéry has extended in recent years to basically merge the greater influence circles of both cities, transforming the bulk of the Isère valley into lower middle-class suburban or proto-suburban territory with fairly strong and sustained demographic growth. This type of socio-demographic evolution, périurbanisation, is generally politically favourable to the right and especially the FN. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy proved a particularly good candidate for those types of growing middle-class proto-suburbs. It might serve to explain why he broke the left’s old coherent chain of support in the combe de Savoie.

Albertville lies at the confluence of four valleys, including the val d’Arly, a smaller valley smacked between the Bauges and the Beaufortin. The main population centre is Ugine, an industrial city driven by a declining steel industry. Historically one of the left’s main strongholds in Savoie, Ugine and its region has suffered from economic decline and transformations (towards ski resorts in nearby Flumet), and it is no longer the Socialist or Communist stronghold of yesteryear. Lionel Jospin had won 50.3% of the vote in Ugine in 1995, Sarkozy won 55%. It has been governed since 1995 by the right, after having been governed by the left or PCF since 1908.

Chambéry, the largest city and political centre of Savoie, has a weaker and more recent industrial base than other cities. Historically, its economy was largely based around public administration and the military, with its industrial activities (textile, glass, light manufacturing, factories) being more recent. It is a cosmopolitan urban core, with a sizable foreign-born population (largely Italian) and a large student population thanks to a local university. Politically, Chambéry has traditionally leaned to the right, but it has seen a significant shift to the left in recent years. Governed by the right for decades save the 1977-1983 period, PS deputy Louis Besson was elected mayor by the first round in 1989. After a narrow reelection in 2001, he retired in 2007 in favour of Bernadette Laclais, a young regional councillor, who was reelected in a cakewalk by the first round in 2008.

In 1995, Chambéry gave Chirac 53.8% of the vote, but in 2007, Sarkozy lost the city by a hair winning 49.4% of the vote. The city’s clear left-wing inclination was further confirmed in 2010, when the left won 58% of the vote against a paltry 32% for the UMP. But the left in Chambéry, fairly obviously, has a strong Green component: the Greens won 22% of the vote in Chambéry in 2009, against barely 17% for the PS. As the traditionally working-class parts of the department shift towards the right, at least until 2007, the more cosmopolitan middle-class urbanized areas of Chambéry and its immediate surroundings are shifting towards the left.

Save for the less affluent inner suburb of Cognin, Chambéry’s larger suburban communities are largely affluent and right-leaning. Sarkozy won 62% in affluent La Motte-Servolex, 61% in Sonnaz, 58% in Barberaz, 57% in La Ravoire and 57% in Saint-Alban-Leysse. He also won 59% in affluent Bourget-du-Lac, less suburban and driven largely by tourism and with a sizable student population. We might be seeing a slight shift to the left in Chambéry’s inner suburbs, including La Ravoire or Jacob-Bellecombette which has a large student population. Chirac had taken 57% in Jacob-Bellecombette, Sarkozy took only 53% and the Greens did really well in 2009.

The communities which line the Lac du Bourget are all, with a few exceptions, very affluent, a common element for most towns clustered along a small inland lake. Most prominent of these communities is Aix-les-Bains, the department’s second largest city. Affluent, Aix-les-Bain has historically been marked by thermalisme or hydrotherapy. Like the bulk of these French cities with hot springs and spas, it has historically attracted a fortunate, very well-off clientele. Aix is the main right-wing stronghold in western Savoie. Sarkozy won 62%, about the same as Chirac’s 63.5% in 1995. Between 1969 and 1985 and again between 1995 and 2001, Aix was the stronghold of RPR strongman André Grosjean. Political battles at the local level have often opposed the various factions of the right. Grosjean, defeated by UDF deputy Gratien Ferrari in 1989, in turn defeated Ferrari in 1995 before being defeated again in 2001 by DL deputy Dominique Dord, easily reelected in 2008 with 63% while Ferrari won only 9.6%.

Other affluent lakeside communities such as Tresserve (70% Sarkozy), Bourdeau (69%), Brison-Saint-Innocent (62%) or Conjux (60%) have been strongly right-wing in recent years.

The avant-pays savoyard, separated from the separated from the Chambéry area by the southernmost reaches of the Jura, is a largely rural area with small population centres (Yenne, Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin, Saint-Genix-sur-Guiers) concentrated along the rivers which define the department’s boundaries with the Ain and Isère. These towns seem fairly working-class areas, with old declining cités cheminotes such as Saint-Genix or Saint-Béron or larger light manufacturing centres such as Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin. The working-class traditions of these areas are largely historical facts nowadays, as they appear to be poorer areas attracted towards larger middle-sized population poles (Belley, La Tour-du-Pin, Voiron or Chambéry-Aix) by the process of périurbanisation. Some communes lying closer to Chambéry-Aix and connected by a highway to the main population conglomerations of the valley or across the border in Nord-Isère have become suburban or exurban communities, though not as affluent as the older suburbs.

In political terms, some of the older working-class areas had a rather strong left-wing tradition - Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin was a PCF stronghold of sorts for quite some time – but there has been a strong shift to the right in recent years. Nicolas Sarkozy performed well both in affluent proto-suburbs such as Novalaise (60%), lower middle-class exurbs such as Saint-Paul or Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu (59%) and non-suburban population centres with a working-class past such as Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin (56%), Saint-Béron (57.5%), Saint-Genix (62.6%), Saint-Christophe (63%) and Yenne (63%). Chirac, in 1995, had done about as well or even better than Sarkozy in places like Novalaise but Sarkozy outperformed him most in the non-suburban population centres or lower middle-class exurbs.

In 1992, Savoie voted oui to Maastricht with 54% (51% nationally) and in 2005 it voted non to the TCE with 51.4% (55% nationally). Slightly more pro-European than average, these two EU referendums are instructive on their own given the fairly stark class patterns they exhibited. In 1992, the no was triumphant only in the Maurienne (save Saint-Jean), Ugine and parts of the combe and avant-pays. Put simply, working-class areas proved resistant, as did lower middle-class exurbs. The ski resorts were more reserved in their yes votes, likely the impact of a certain reticence by some right-wingers to vote oui to a referendum supported by Mitterrand and the PS as well. But support was high in the urban area of Chambéry-Aix, where affluent and middle-class urbanites confirmed their pro-European inclinations. In 2005, the oui was dominant in the ski resort cantons in the mountains and again in the Chambéry-Aix agglomeration. Ski resorts embraced the oui wholeheartedly, as did most affluent right-wing strongholds across France, while urban areas remained favourably predisposed towards the constitution. Once again, the Maurienne (especially PCF stronghold Aiguebelle) proved the most most Eurosceptic region.

Abstention is about at the national average in Savoie, sometimes above average or below average (as in the 2007 presidential election). It follows the national patterns closely, to highs such as 56.5% abstention in the first round of the regionals in 2010 or lows or 13.8% abstention in the first round of the 2007 election. As is usual in most of France, it is higher in mountainous areas for reasons of remoteness and in urban areas. Rural areas around Chambéry-Aix have tended to turn out in higher numbers, as have parts of the Isère valley.

Partisan Bases of Support

The FN

Savoie has had a major far-right presence for the past twenty or so years, peaking at 19.8% of the vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen on April 21, 2002. Since then, the FN’s performance in Savoie has been far less impressive. Le Pen outperformed his national result by only a few decimals in 2007 and the FN’s 2010 result in Savoie, 14%, was not particularly spectacular. Furthermore, the FN has never really had the institutional impact it had in PACA or even other parts of Rhône-Alpes.

Results of the 2002 presidential election by canton (source: geoclip)

The 2002 cantonal map is rather interesting. Jean-Marie Le Pen dominated the Maurienne, the combe, the Albertville-Ugine valleys and most of western Savoie including the avant-pays. Jacques Chirac, on the other hand, was victorious in the urban centres of Chambéry, Albertville, the ski-driven Tarentaise, affluent La Motte and rural mountainous Le Châtelard.

In the Maurienne, parts of the combe and Albertville-Ugine, Le Pen’s electorate was probably more working-class. He won 24% in Ugine, 27% in Grignon, 22% in La Chambre, 21% in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and 25% in Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne. At a more macro cantonal level, his best result was 24.5% in the canton of La Rochette, a small mixed valley-hills/mountain canton with a proletarian tradition. He won 24% in Ugine, boosted both by industrial Ugine and the conservative rural-small resorts of the mountains. He did similarly well in the Maurienne’s cantons, including 21% in Aiguebelle (but he did rather poorly in the PCF stronghold of Saint-Georges-des-Hurtières), 23% in La Chambre and 22% in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Some of the frontiste vote there in 2002 was probably of the gaucho-lepénisme variant, but in the core left-wing strongholds, Le Pen did rather poorly.

In parts of the Isère valley but also in most of the avant-pays savoyard, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s vote was likely more périurbain - lower middle-class exurban or outer suburban with a working-class past. This is basically the type 1-bis FN vote I described in an earlier post on the Le Pen collapse of 2007. As with most type 1-bis areas, the avant-pays or Isère valley is not particularly poor and unemployment tends to be below average, but there is a strong law-and-order/nationalist populist-conservative element in these areas. The proximity to urban areas (Chambéry, Grenoble, Annecy, Nord-Isère and Lyon) which concentrate the “liberal elites” and large immigrant/foreign-born populations also provides a natural boost to the FN vote. Again working at a cantonal level, Le Pen won 22% in Les Echelles, 21% in Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin, 21% in Yenne and 22% in Albens, but also 22% in Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny and 20.5% in Chamoux-sur-Gelon. At a communal level in some communes used as examples earlier, Le Pen won 29.7% in Saint-Christophe-sur-Guiers, 28% in Saint-Béron and 24% in Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin (commune).

His vote in the valley around the lake and Chambéry was not as high (17-20%) but he did take 22% in Aix and 27% in Voglans (a suburb of Chambéry).

Jean-Marie Le Pen lost 9.04% of his 2002 support in 2007. In reverse, Nicolas Sarkozy did 9% better than Chirac-Boutin-Madelin had done in 2002. As in most of Rhône-Alpes and PACA with similar concentrations of type 1/type 1-bis FN voters, Nicolas Sarkozy was very successful in attracting the votes of these voters whose FN was not quite the anti-system protest vote cast by the more working-class FN voters in the north of France. Again, our three fairly homogeneous constituencies do not show wide disparities in the FN change from 2002 to 2007, but Le Pen’s heaviest loss (-9.44%) was in the first constituency (the avant-pays, Aix, Chambéry centre).

In 2010, the FN’s results hardly matched the successes registered by Le Pen in 2002, but the bases were largely similar. Strongest support was in the avant-pays savoyard where type 1-bis voters have returned to the FN fold: 19% in Yenne, 18% in Les Echelles and 16.5% in Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin. In the Maurienne, the FN won 18% in Saint-Michel, 15% in Saint-Jean, 16% in La Chambre and 16.3% in La Rochette. The FN took 16% in Ugine and 17.6% in Albertville-Sud. Results in the urban agglomerations were weak: 10% in Chambéry, 11.6% in Cognin, 13.5% in La Ravoire and 12% in La Motte-Servolex.

The Greens

In the 2009 European elections, the Greens took 19.9% in Savoie and still won 19% in the 2010 regionals. It placed a distant second ahead of the PS, generally outpolling the PS in most of the department’s communes.

Fairly obviously, the Greens performed weakest in the working-class Maurienne and parts of the combe near Albertville. It performed very strongly in the Chambéry metro, taking 22% in the city itself and between 18 and 30% in the bulk of the surrounding communities including 26% in Jacob-Bellecombette, 22% in Le Bourget-du-Lac and 19% in Aix. It also performed fairly strongly – in some cases very strongly – in areas which we can think of as rural or suburban (24% in Le Châtelard, a rural area largely in the Bauges mountains). In those cases, it likely took traditional PS voters but perhaps some younger bobo-types who moved to villages in the mountains or voters concerned by environmental issues (likely a major reason in explaining Savoie’s natural strong greenie inclination). In the Tarentaise, the Greens did rather well, save for the very affluent ski resorts like Val-d’Isère, taking 24% in the canton of Bourg-Saint-Maurice or 22% in Aime.

The correlation is not entirely there, but in good part the Green map looks like a mirror (reverse) image of the FN vote, with weak performances in the Maurienne and the borders where the FN performs well.

The centre

Savoie is not as receptive to centrist candidates of the Christian democratic family as Haute-Savoie is, largely because it is far less clerical than Haute-Savoie. The UDF was never particularly strong in Savoie, though Albertville’s constituency did elect Joseph Fontanet, a long-time MRP bigwig and cabinet minister, between 1956 and 1973. In 1995, Edouard Balladur, whose support was in most cases reflective of that of the UDF, outpolled Jacques Chirac in Savoie, a result perhaps more reflective of Savoie’s more liberal variant of right-wing politics which was represented by Balladur over the more populist Chirac. In 2007, François Bayrou won 20.07% of the vote in Savoie, above his national average. Again, this result is perhaps more reflective of Bayrou’s strong appeal to moderate right-wing voters (of which there are quite a few in Savoie, despite the appearance the strong FN vote creates) of a more social liberal/liberal variant.

Bayrou’s support in Savoie was in good part concentrated in the Chambéry-Aix basin. He won 21.3% in Chambéry and 20.6% in Aix. At a cantonal level, Bayrou achieved 23% support in La Ravoire, 22% in La Motte, 23% in Aix-Nord, 21.4% in Cognin, 23% in Albens and 22% in Albertville-Nord. Bayrou’s strong support in 2007 has hardly translated into a strong base of support for the MoDem since then. At a cantonal level, it holds only Cognin.

The PCF

The PCF’s results in Savoie have traditionally been very close to the national average. In 1995, Robert Hue won 7.94% of the vote. More recently, the FG won 5.5% in 2009 and 6.6% in 2010. The PCF is left with only a single seat in the general council, its old stronghold of Aiguebelle which it has held since 1976, joined in 2011 by a gain by the PG in La Chambre. At a local level, the PCF is weak in large urban centres but maintains a fairly sizable local infrastructure in rural areas. As previously noted, the small iron ore mining village Saint-Georges-des-Hurtières is a rock-ribbed PCF stronghold.

Like most of those few remaining ancestrally Communist cantons in France, Aiguebelle often continues to give the PCF some nice results in elections to most other levels. In 2009, the FG placed second in the canton of Aiguebelle and first in Saint-Georges-des-Hurtières. In 2010, it gave 20% of the vote to the FG (and 50.3% in Saint-Georges). Saint-Georges-des-Hurtières still votes for the PCF in levels which they haven’t seen elsewhere since the 1950s. It gave 19% of the vote to Marie-George Buffet in 2007!

Elsewhere, the PCF’s support is largely defined by the industrial or working-class areas in the Isère valley and the Tarentaise from Albertville to Moûtiers. In 2010, the FG won 13% in Albertville-Sud (which includes some PCF strongholds such as Cevins, 27% of the vote), 10% in Chamoux-sur-Gelon, 10% in Ugine (14% in Ugine proper) and 9.6% in Moûtiers. The PCF also retains a smaller foothold in its old strongholds in the avant-pays. In the Maurienne, where the PCF used to have a much stronger footing in the 1970s, the PCF can still poll fairly well, usually in its strongholds such as Saint-Etienne-de-Cuines (12% in 2010).

Historical Voting Patterns

Legislative elections in Savoie since 1871

Savoie, which became French only on the late, was traditionally republican during the early days of the Third Republic. In 1871, when the rest of France voted for peace and the monarchists, Savoie narrowly elected a majority of republicans (3-2) to the National Assembly. In the years which followed, Savoie’s single-member constituencies never once elected an anti-republican (monarchist, Bonapartist, nationalist) deputy. It usually preferred moderate opportunist republicans, until 1902 when it started voting Radical (Albertville elected a Catholic rallié). Thus, in the latter parts of the Third Republic, Savoie became a Radical stronghold. In 1906 and 1928, it returned only Radicals. Like Champagne or Eure-et-Loir, Savoie’s radicalism was of the centrist variety, a Radical vote which expressed the republicanism but also the fairly conservative views of smallholders who owned their land rather than a left-wing vote expressing anti-clericalism or anti-system protest. As such, the PRG has had basically no major impact in Savoie and its base is non-existent besides one general councillor.

In 1936, the arrondissement of Chambéry returned two Radicals, including the fairly left-wing ‘Young Turk’ Pierre Cot, while Moûtiers reelected Ugine mayor André Pringolliet (an ex-Socialist, now standing under the ‘republican-socialist’ etiquette). Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne ousted its right-leaning Radical incumbent in favour of a SFIO candidate who was elected on the votes of Aiguebelle, La Chambre and Saint-Jean.

In the post-war years, Savoie elected two Communists (including Pierre Cot, who, while not technically a Communist, affiliated with the PCF) in 1946. But in both those cases, the success was more the result of a common left-wing slate, led by Pierre Cot. The right was dominated by Joseph Delachenal, who had already been elected back in 1910 and 1919. In the 1951 and 1956 elections, in which the PCF stood on its own, it found the bulk of its support in the Maurienne valley (especially La Chambre, Saint-Jean, La Rochette, Aiguebelle) but also Moûtiers, Albertville and Ugine. The right usually dominated the mountains and the west.

Between 1958 and 1973, Savoie was dominated by the right, though by its three families. Joseph Fontanet, a prominent centrist (MRP, later CD) figure and oftentimes a cabinet minister, dominated the Tarentaise and Albertville. Jean Delachenal, the son of Joseph Delachenal and a member of the CNIP and later a giscardien, dominated the constituency centered around Chambéry and Aix. Finally, the Maurienne was dominated by Pierre Dumas, the young Gaullist mayor of Chambéry (1959-1977, 1983-1989).

In 1973, Savoie elected two PS deputies: Louis Besson in Chambéry-Aix and Jean-Pierre Cot in the Maurienne. Only Fontanet survived, but in 1974, Fontanet (trying to return to his old seat after leaving cabinet) was defeated in a by-election by a PS candidate, Maurice Blanc, who would be the only Socialist to represent Albertville. In 1978, Michel Barnier, a young RPR leader, defeated Blanc in the Tarentaise, but Besson and Cot were reelected in narrow contests. In 1981, however, all three were reelected by large margins.

In 1986, through PR, Savoie elected two right-wingers: Barnier and Gratien Ferrari (UDF), leaving Louis Besson in the third seat. In 1988, the PS’ Roger Rinchet was elected in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, while Besson and Barnier returned to their old seats. In 1993, Gratien Ferrari (UDF) was hindered in his quest to defeat Besson’s PS right-hand man Jean-Paul Calloud by the candidacy of the RPR’s Jean-Pierre Vial, although he was ultimately successful. In 1997, Dominique Dord (UDF-DL) was elected fairly easily in Ferrari’s old constituency of Chambéry-Aix. In the Maurienne, the RPR’s Michel Bouvard faced a tougher race but won by 1400 votes. In Albertville, Hervé Gaymard (RPR) was elected by a fairly anemic margin in the safest seat for the right. In 2002 and 2007, all three incumbents won fairly simple reelections. In 2007, only Bouvard struggled a bit against the PS mayor of Chambéry, Bernadette Laclais. In 2012, Laclais is likely in good shape to win the fairly left-leaning new fourth constituency centered around her base of Chambéry. It could also be in a strong position to take the third constituency.

The face of France in June 1946

About a month ago, I had explored the political map of France following the June 1951 legislative elections. The 1951 elections had been marked by the emergence of the Gaullist RPF, which won around 22% of the vote and seriously disturbed the rather solid party system which had been established since 1945. As such, the 1951 elections do not really offer us with a “classic” view of the Fourth Republic’s main parties (the PCF, SFIO, MRP, moderates and Radicals) at their strongest or at least in a period where they were the only major political forces which weighed something at a national level. By 1951, the PCF’s decline had already begun, the SFIO was very much below its 1945 level and the MRP was in collapse. It is thus interesting to look at the political map of France in the elections to the Second Constituent Assembly of the GPRF in June 1946. They provide us with a view of the PCF and MRP at some type of ‘equilibrium’, while the SFIO, moderates and Radicals remained fairly strong as third parties.

In the history of constituent assemblies around the world, it is fairly rare for there to be two successive constituent assemblies. Usually one constituent body is elected, drafts a constitution which is approved and the constituent body dissolved shortly thereafter to make way for the new regime’s elected legislature. As France wrote a new constitution following Liberation, however, the first constituent assembly ultimately failed to see its constitutional project approved, which meant that a second constituent assembly needed to be elected to start again.

The constituent assembly elected in October 1945 shortly after the end of the war was heavily dominated by the left, with the PCF as the largest party with 27% of the seats and the SFIO as the third largest party with 25% of the seats. The PCF’s goal by this point was not to take power unilaterally on its own. Thus had been its strategy in 1944, but it had rather quickly changed its strategy as the war ended as it was not in Moscow’s interest to have the PCF creating a revolutionary situation in western Europe, which would have compelled the Americans to intervene militarily in France and disturb the new European balance of power. Instead, in 1945, the PCF’s objective was to work within the regime. Whether or not its final goal was still the establishment of a single-party communist state is up for debate, but in 1945, Maurice Thorez understood that the PCF was not in a situation to do so. Instead, the PCF had decided to work within the regime and participate in the governing coalitions of the provisional government – even with right-wingers and centre-right parties such as the MRP. What took form was the tripartisme, a coalition of the PCF, SFIO and MRP with ephemeral participation from the Radicals or moderates depending on the government. Tripartisme actually took form in January 1946 following de Gaulle’s resignation, but it had more or less operated – though with de Gaulle as the symbolic leader – since 1945.

Though the PCF and MRP were both coalition partners, in terms of constitutional debate, the first constituent assembly’s debates were dominated by the left – PCF and SFIO – who held an absolute majority and whose constitutional vision was rather similar. The left worked over the MRP’s head (though the SFIO had wished to be more conciliatory with the MRP) and the result was the passage of a first constitutional project in the spring of 1946 which appeared to be the project of the PCF. The marking elements of the April 1946 project was unicameralism and the dominance of the legislative over the executive (and even judiciary). There was to be a single legislature, which would have control over the executive. The head of government would be elected by the National Assembly, who would then vote confidence in the winner’s cabinet. The President, elected by the National Assembly, would see his role limited to being a “mailman” who would inform the National Assembly of the candidates for head of government. Unicameralism and the legislative’s dominance over the executive was quite conform to the PCF (and SFIO) conceptions of what the new state should be. The old Senate of the Third Republic, which had overthrown the Popular Front in 1937 and had been a conservative bulwark, was despised by the left which saw it as a conservative, undemocratic aberration. They were also hostile to any strong presidential office which could have provided Charles de Gaulle or a person of his stature which tremendous power. For those who believe that the PCF had never abandoned its goal of taking power in France, the April 1946 draft was the democratic constitution which would perhaps have provided the easiest route to Marxist takeover. A potential “Marxist” (PCF-SFIO) majority in the National Assembly could have overpowered the presidency and judiciary and form a government according to its own wishes, with no conservative unelected upper house to counterbalance the hegemonic legislature.

The April 1946 draft was approved by a 309 to 249 vote, with votes in favour likely coming heavily from the PCF-SFIO majority (305 seats) with the centre and right – especially the Radicals and MRP – opposed. The draft was submitted to a referendum on May 5. While the project had been the joint creation of the PCF and SFIO, during the referendum’s campaign, the SFIO kind of erased itself which made the PCF the dominant force of the ‘yes’ campaign. Those who know only one thing about the April 1946 draft will probably know that it was “the communist project” which is not technically true, but became more or less accurate given that the ‘yes’ campaign was basically a PCF campaign. The right opposed the new constitution and de Gaulle had shown that he was hardly pleased with the result (by this time, de Gaulle was no longer head of the government), but the ‘no’ campaign was largely spearheaded by the MRP. de Gaulle had not even bothered to vote in the end.

The result of the May 5 referendum came as a major surprise: 53% no, 47% yes with 19% abstention. The mood seemed to have been that the draft would be approved by the voters fairly easily, but a fairly strong anti-communist reaction rejected it and forced all parties to return to the drawing board. The results of the May 1946 referendum will be worth exploring in further detail someday, as it really laid down the map of French left and right until the mid-1980s at the least.

A second constituent assembly, with seven months to draw up a new constitution, was elected on June 2. By and large, voters voted as they had in October. The PCF won 25.98% of the vote, against 26.23% in October. The MRP, with 28.2%, outpaced the PCF and gained considerably from the 23.9% it had won in October. The SFIO, with 21%, fell back from the 23.5% it had won in October. The right, with 12.8%, fell from 15.7% in October. The RGR (Radicals and UDSR) won 11.6%, close to the 10.5% they had won in 1945. The PCF won 153 seats (159 in 1945), the SFIO only 128 (146 in 1945) while the MRP won 166 seats, up from 150. The right-wing ‘moderate’ constellation added up to 67 seats, actually up from 64 in 1945 (note that 11 parti paysan deputies in 1945 caucused with the UDSR in 1945, but the 9 remaining caucused with the RI group in 1946). The Radicals and UDSR, weighing 60 seats in 1945, weighed 52 in the new legislature.

The bulk of voters actually voted as they had a few months before, but the shift of only a few voters meant that the new constituent assembly no longer had a left-wing majority of Communists and Socialists. The MRP had become the largest party, and it could no longer be ignored in drafting a new constitution. Fairly quickly, a compromise acceptable (more or less) to the PCF, SFIO and MRP was worked out which was approved by 53.5% of voters in a referendum on October 13, 1946. The referendum was a Pyrrhic victory for the new Fourth Republic, given that, as de Gaulle styled it, a third of voters didn’t vote (a very high figure for the time), a third approved it and a third rejected it. But it had been approved, despite Gaullist opposition and initial Communist reticence. The MRP’s objections to the April draft had actually been fairly minor in the wider realm of things and mostly concerned the number of chambers and executive powers. The new draft created an indirectly elected upper house, similar to the old Senate (the upper house would also participate in the president’s election), and slightly increased the President’s powers, notably giving him the right to nominate a head of government instead of being relegated to the role of mailman.

It is worthwhile to stop for a bit on the June 1946 elections, despite their limited significance in the wider realm of things. They were the only elections in which the MRP outpolled the PCF for first place, and they provide us with a nice view of the two parties at some sort of equilibrium. For me, the main interest lies in having a snapshot of French politics in that ephemeral period of the post-war era where the Gaullists or other anti-system forces of the right (Poujadists) were absent. As just about any other election, June 1946 is also a good excuse to make comments about the MRP’s weaknesses, the PCF’s ever-fascinating electoral coalition or talk about random things which are quite interesting. Once again it is worth pointing out that while these were proportional elections (highest averages method), in some departments, particularly ones with few seats, the results might not be reflective of the ‘real’ political culture but might instead be heavily conditioned by circumstances or factors such as local candidates, party lists and alliances or party organization.

% vote for the five parliamentary parties by department, expressed as a percentage of registered voters

I think you can develop an analysis from this map, and there are clear – and familiar – patterns which are already perceptible. But I shy away from limiting an analysis to the departmental level, as departments – as the bulk of sub-national divisions around the world – are not homogeneous entities and often contain a variety of different regional realities. The following map, built on the same bases as the map which you can see in my 1951 analysis, displays results at a cantonal level. The base map is mine, but the work of colouring in this beautiful map was done by a friend of mine who was kind enough to allow me to use it for this blog’s purpose.

Winning party list by canton with percentile range, expressed as a percentage of valid votes

The Irony of the MRP’s electorate

The Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP) was founded in 1944 by a group of Christian left résistants whose political goal was to create a broad movement which provided a middle-ground between the economic liberalism of the right and the Marxist collectivism/socialism of the left. As such, the MRP’s platform was actually pretty left-wing, notably so on economic issues where the MRP was quite wary of laissez-faire economic liberalism. It was in a sense very much linked to the teachings of social Catholicism, which had emerged in the early twentieth century.

In the political history of French Catholicism to date, the MRP represented a novelty. In the past, Catholicism in France – which meant actual Catholics who went to church and not secular ‘Catholics by tradition’ – was closely linked to the right. The Catholic Church had been associated with the forces of reaction of the Ancien Régime and republican propaganda up till the turn of the century clearly identified the Catholic Church as the enemy of progress and Catholicism as running counter to the republican/revolutionary ideals of democracy, freedom, liberty, equality and progress. The Catholic Church in practice also acted as the enemy of the nascent republican state, and on the ground the clergy formed a powerful political actor often working in tandem with the old landed aristocracy or bourgeoisie. In places such as Anjou or Vendée, the clergy allied with the landed rural aristocracy ran the show. Was it a coincidence, therefore, that those regions marked by the revolution’s egalitarian traditions bred by small private property were the most anti-clerical and de-Christianized regions of France?

The MRP was unique in that it was the first political party identified with political Catholicism which tried to find a common ground between Catholic faith and democracy, liberty and social progress. However, the MRP was unable to conciliate the two and its weight as a political actor weakened seriously following 1946, in large part because of the emergence of Gaullism. Following the 1950s, the non-Gaullist centrist tradition embodied by the MRP and later parties would be worth only 15% of the French electorate at most. Why was the MRP unable to maintain its electoral coalition of 1946?

This map, when the MRP polled 28%, actually contains the key to answering that question. The Christian left electorate in France is infinitely small in actuality, so the bulk of the MRP’s votes came from voters who were more right-wing than the party they voted for. There are two main reasons why these voters, who had not voted for the proto-MRP (PDP) during the Third Republic, voted for the MRP in 1945-1946:

Firstly, and most importantly, the traditional right of the Third Republic – basically the old conservative FR and the centre-right AD – were in shambles, were archaic parties and were totally discredited following the end of the war. The FR and AD had been partis de notables by excellence, to which the Third Republic’s electoral system – the single-member scrutin d’arrondissement - had been quite conducive to. Given that the parliamentarian’s survival depended on voters in his local constituency, when he voted he did so based far more on his constituency’s interests than in the interests of his weak party. After all, the party could not elect him, so they could not defeat him. However, the party-list proportional representation of the post-war era constructed a whole new system were the autonomy of the individual member was very restricted by the growing power of the party apparatus. They were now the ones who decided whether he would be elected, meaning that the parliamentarian’s interest was now to look out for his party who had the power to decide of his future. The parties of the Third Republic had been weak, unstructured, lacking authority over its members and often – especially on the right – consisting only of a myriad of “committees” for which the era was quite famous for. On the other hand, the parties of the Fourth Republic were generally strong, structured, cohesive and hegemonic. The left, especially the PCF, had already been structured in the later years of the Third Republic, but the MRP understood the importance of structure following its foundation. The right never did understand that. Until the creation of the CNI in 1949 which structured matters a bit more, the French right was very much divided between weak and irrelevant parties and groups. The largest was the Republican Party of Liberty (PRL), whose name, in the tradition of the French right, highlighted what it was not. In the second constituent assembly, however, the PRL had only 35 members against 23 members for the ‘Independent Republicans’ group – a coalition of those people such as former FR deputy Édouard Frédéric-Dupont who did not join the PRL. Alongside the RI group, there were 9 members of the small conservative agrarian Parti paysan led by Haute-Loire deputy Paul Antier.

It also did not help matters that the right of the Third Republic had been closely associated with the ‘defeat’ (in 1940) and then had its reputation severely tarnished by the collaboration of several of its prominent members with the Vichy regime. Following the war, the electorate as a whole embraced parties which maintained a clean reputation (more or less) or had been closely identified with the resistance (such as the PCF post-1941). Politicians who had collaborated were either legally barred from participating in politics (for a short while) or were shunned by voters. The bulk of the “moderate” tradition found itself discredited by the defeat of 1940 and the subsequent collaboration or at least a pro-Pétain vote on July 10, 1940 of the bulk of its members. For voters, the old right was a discredited and archaic structure. For up-and-coming right-wing politicians or those old right-wing politicians in search of a new beginning, there was little incentive to join the right. The MRP, established in 1945 as the credible party of the right or at least the largest non-Marxist party, had much more appeal. Some bad tongues have called the MRP the Machine à Recycler les Pétainistes, perhaps not without reason but still a rather unfair abbreviation. If you’re in the business of making fun of party abbreviations, Mon Révérend Père would fit the MRP better, especially if you’re secular or left-wing.

The second reason, more contextual, lays in the MRP’s successful campaign against the April constitution in the May 5 referendum. The no campaign had been waged almost entirely by the MRP (and the yes campaign almost entirely by the PCF), so for anti-communist and right-wing voters in June, the MRP appeared, pragmatically, as the most viable anti-communist option.

Thereby emerged the contradiction between a right-wing electorate and a left-leaning platform and party leadership, a contradiction worsened by the fact that until 1951 the MRP almost always governed with the Socialists. The old line is that the MRP was a centrist party with a right-wing electorate which governed on the left. The MRP was never able to overcome this fundamental existential contradiction.

The map shows this problem quite clearly. The MRP was clearly dominant in the bulk of la France catholique, that is to say most of Brittany, the inner west, the Bocage Normand, the inner west, the Basque Country, the southern Massif Central (the plateaus such as the Aubrac, the Grands Causses, the Cantal and so forth), the Moyen and Haut Vivarais (Ardèche), the Loire and Rhône departments, Savoie, the Massif du Jura (the region around Pontarlier and Saint-Claude), most of Alsace-Moselle, parts of Lorraine and Flanders. While those regions remain the main bases of the French centre to this day despite the major demographic evolutions they have gone through since the 1940s, in the 1940s these regions were largely rural and very conservative. Regions such as the inner west and continental Brittany had been the monarchist strongholds up until the point where the monarchy became a lost cause (1890s) and remained solidly conservative and clerical. I bet that all things being equal, if faced by a party with the MRP’s platform and a (similarly strong and not discredited) party with a traditional conservative platform in 1946, the bulk of these regions would have gone for the latter.

In the west, the MRP dominated places such as the Léon, Vannetais, Brocéliande, Vitréen, the Bocage Angevin, the Choletais and the Bocage Vendéen around Montaigu which were all some of the most clerical but also most reactionary places at the turn of the century (the Léon was slightly less reactionary than its voting would indicate, though). Of course some of it can likely be laid on local circumstances, for example in Vendée, the MRP’s top candidate Lionel de Tinguy was from the Haut-Bocage (canton of Pouzauges), while the standard-bearer of the right, Armand de Baudry d’Asson was from Challans, a city near the Marais Breton and the coastal and less clerical region of the Sables-d’Olonne. But the first impression is quite striking: the MRP dominated in the bulk of the inner west’s most conservative areas.

Outside the west, the MRP also did well in the other parts of the Catholic mosaic of France. Alsace, joined by Moselle, was an MRP stronghold complemented by a strong MRP machine at a local level. The MRP won all Alsatian cantons by wide margins save for the Protestant cantons of Bouxwiller and Drulingen which voted RGR. Flanders and some of the more religious rural areas of the Calaisis, Artois and Boulonnais also voted pretty solidly MRP. The MRP’s success was not as pronounced – far from it in some cases – in the Basque Country, Aveyron, Cantal, Haute-Loire or Ardèche but this largely lies in local dynamics of partisan politics whereby the traditional right was better maintained and ate up the bulk of the clerical conservative vote, especially in the Ardèche where the clergy never solidly backed the MRP and where Paul Ribeyre managed to reorganize the local right. At the same time, the MRP vote expanded successfully into conservative but secular regions such as the Marne, Ardennes, Vienne and parts of Lower Normandy. A similar phenomenon might have been at work in the Parisian basin. A clear sign of a ‘strategic’ right-wing vote for the MRP, as the dominant anti-communist force, but a weak vote which would quickly abandon the MRP in favour of Gaullism, more in touch with the political culture of those regions.

Class voting? The PCF and SFIO

In my post about the 1951 election, I had focused the first part of my analysis on the PCF vote. Of course, as in 1951, the 1946 map of the PCF vote – obviously very close to that of the May referendum – replicates the C/G shape which became the basis of the French electoral map (in the south) until the mid-1980s. The C connects the Italian border to the Catalan border following the Mediterranean coast, but is disconnected a bit in the southwest before forming a solid bloc composed of the Agenois, Limousin, Berry, Bourbonnais and Nivernais. In the north, the Communist vote was concentrated in the Parisian basin and a bloc composed of Picardie and the mining basin of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The northern strongholds are the ones which we have the least difficulty explaining: unionized, working-class and largely industrial.

I had examined the PCF’s C in southern France through pretty Marxist class-based analysis last time, and true enough there are a handful of small industrial centers (most often they formed the PCF bases) and rural areas with a poorer peasantry, often working the land through sharecropping (such as in the Bourbonnais and Berry). But I recognize that this analysis cannot explain everything, and there are exceptions to every pattern and other patterns which this Marxist analysis cannot really explain. There is a cultural factor at work here, where the PCF vote is much less a revolutionary and ideological ‘class vote’ (vote de classe ouvrière) as it may be in the Nord or Seine, but is much more a protest vote. This protest vote is not for the PCF as a communist party, as the party of Moscow or the Marxist party; but rather a protest vote bred by dissatisfaction, poverty, isolation and a good dose of anti-parliamentarianism. A good number of observers have noted that the PCF’s electorate was not all ideologically Marxist – far from it! This type of protest vote developed in rural areas with a strong left-wing republican and anti-clerical tradition, which has cycled through the Radicals in the late nineteenth century, the SFIO at the turn of the century and then the PCF in the post-war era.

To break out of its urban strongholds built up following the Tours Congress, the PCF needed to resolve a contradiction between Moscow’s doctrine and the political reality of France. Soviet doctrine was agrarian collectivism and breaking up (large) private property, a doctrine which might make sense in Russia, southern Spain or Cuba but which doesn’t make sense in France. Private property in France is a tradition inherited from the Revolution of 1789 which gave land to the peasants, providing him with property and a way of living. By consequence, private property was a revolutionary ideal whose defense as the basis of the Revolution has always been defended by the left.

The PCF’s agrarian doctrine (until 1964) included defense of private property mixed in with references to collectivization of land, all styled under the ambiguous slogans of la terre aux paysans or la terre à ceux qui la travaillent. Gradually, the PCF would evolve towards defense of private property (mixed in with rural electrification and development) and limit calls for agrarian reform to expropriation “large capitalist property” which made use of wage labour.

The PCF’s evolution towards a defense of private property, which amounted to the appropriation by the PCF of the old Radical platform, was due in large part to the work of Renaud Jean, the tribun des paysans and interwar PCF deputy for the Lot-et-Garonne. Criticized by Trotsky and the PCF’s left, Renaud Jean was the representative of private property within the PCF and responsible in large part for the development of the PCF’s agrarian platform which allowed it to appeal to impoverished peasants in central and southern France. As a powerful eloquent representative of his department’s small wheat producers, winemakers or tobacco growers, Renaud Jean strongly implanted the PCF in his department. But he was also one of those little-known PCF ‘rural barons’ alongside the likes of Marius Vazeilles (Corrèze) who played a large role in strengthening the PCF at a rural level.

In 1946, the SFIO began its slow and painful decline which would end in the creation of the PS on the ruins of the SFIO. The SFIO had been dealt a severe blow in 1945 when it was outpaced (26-24%) by the PCF, despite Socialist leaders in this pre-polling era being pretty confident of their ability to remain as the dominant driving force of the left. While the SFIO no longer had the prestige of being the driving force of the left, after 1947 the SFIO would have the ‘prestige’ of being a key part of most governments and as such playing the role of the “responsible” party of the left against an increasingly Stalinist and revolutionary PCF. But the SFIO would be weakened electorally, starting as early as June 1946, by the contradictions between the SFIO’s revolutionary or radical Marxist rhetoric (especially after Guy Mollet’s left-wing faction defeated the right-wing Blum/Mayer faction) and the realities of governing which includes compromise, concessions and dealing with the right.

At 21%, the SFIO was still a pretty important actor, but it had largely lost the working-class vote outside the Nord and maybe Limoges. The SFIO vote during this period was socially composite – an inter-class electorate – and made up of a bunch of different demographics. There was a rump of perhaps more affluent and less revolutionary working-class support, mostly in the Nord (Roubaix, Pont-à-Marcq, Avesnes-sur-Helpe, Cambrai), parts of the Pas-de-Calais mining basin, Saint-Nazaire and Limoges. There was a strong element of old republican, left-wing and anti-clerical rural support in the southwest (Haute-Garonne, Aude, Ariège, Landes), Provence and other similar areas such as the Tregorrois/Monts-d’Arée or eastern Sarthe (Plateau Calaisien). These are mostly regions of small private property, save the Landes which was hugely dominated by sharecropping and agriculture influenced by resin extraction from the Landes’ vast pine forests. It has been described as an electorate made up in good number of middle-class salaried employees and public sector workers.

The June 1946 election was not very significant, but in purely electoral terms it saw a balanced field between the MRP and PCF and was the penultimate election before the emergence of anti-system forces in 1951.

 

2007: Jean-Marie Le Pen’s collapse

On April 21, 2002 the far-right’s standard bearer, Jean-Marie Le Pen, had made history by placing second and qualifying for the runoff with 16.86% of the vote. It was an historic night for the French far-right, which had won its best result in its existence. However, five years later, Jean-Marie Le Pen failed to repeat his feat. With 10.44%, he placed a distant fourth and won a result which marked the end of his reign as the patriarch of the far-right in France. Few had expected such a result: in fact, with polls placing him at 12-14% before the vote, most casual observers had expected him to pull at least 16% given how polls underestimated his vote in the past. While the FN has roared back to prominence making talk of its imminent death silly, one of the main lessons of the 2007 presidential election had been Nicolas Sarkozy’s ability to grasp, by the first round, a sizable share of Le Pen’s April 21 voters.

Comparative evolution of the right and FN (2007) by department

Between 38% (Ifop) and 21% (Ipsos) of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s first round voters from 2002 voted for Nicolas Sarkozy by the first round of the 2007 election. The old patriarch kept only between 53% (Ifop) and 64% (Ipsos) of the voters who had made his spectacular feat of April 21, 2002 a reality. After having been deeply ingrained in French politics and society for over 20 years, after having weathered through the crippling split of 1998 with Bruno Mégret and after having resisted well in the 2004 regional elections, how did the FN suffer such a sudden and violent collapse?

The answer lies in the unique personality of Nicolas Sarkozy. The French right, after having tried unsuccessfully to court Le Pen’s electorate in the late 1980s, the right led by Jacques Chirac had cut short its attempts to seduce his electorate. Sarkozy, on the other hand, while not openly embracing or courting the far-right as a political entity, built himself an image as a law-and-order tough on crime populist which was quite different from that of the traditional right, led by Chirac. An ironic image for a man who was as recently as 2002 considered as one of the most liberal (in the French sense) politicians in France, but Sarkozy harboured deep presidential ambitions. Sarkozy’s strategy was to conquer Le Pen’s electorate by reclaiming control over certain themes which had until then been the exclusive property of the FN (ideas such as too much immigration, insecurity in the suburbs and so forth). To counter the old patriarch, his strategy was to show himself as an energetic Interior Minister in touch with reality who “gets stuff done” as opposed to Le Pen, portrayed as an archaic leader with radical positions out of touch with reality. Sarkozy struck at a moment which was perfect. Following Le Pen’s underwhelming performance in the 2002 runoff, an increasing number of FN voters were growing desperate for action and change while harbouring mounting doubts about Le Pen’s ability to conquer power and affect those changes himself.

While the FN criticized Sarkozy’s action as mirages and Le Pen often repeated how voters preferred the original to the copy, the party’s electorate appreciated Sarkozy’s action and positions taken in his role as Interior Minister in the fight against criminality and delinquency. Looking at Ifop polls over the course of campaign, the turning point seems to have been the riots in the Gare du Nord on March 27. Following those incidents, Sarkozy increased with Le Pen 2002 voters from the lows 30s to the high 30s. Ironically, Sarkozy’s announcement on the creation of the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity in early March actually led to a slow slide in his support with Le Pen’s electorate. It seems as if Le Pen’s electorate responds poorly to moves which seem as overt pandering from the UMP but respond far better to circumstances and events (such as the Gare du Nord riots).

Jean-Marie Le Pen lost about 6.42% of his 2002 result in 2007. On the other hand, Sarkozy increased by 6.2% the combined performance of Jacques Chirac, Alain Madelin and Christine Boutin in 2002. It is almost as if both go hand in hand: Le Pen’s lost vote almost all flowed to Sarkozy. At a departmental level, excluding the DOM-TOM and Corsica (because they voted weirdly), the correlation between the FN and the right’s evolution between 2002 and 2007 is very strong at 0.81. Of course, when you include the DOM-TOMs and Corsica, the correlation drops a whole lot to 0.58, but we’re looking at places where voting is very parochial, where the FN is very weak (the DOM-TOMs) or where it grasps a rather unique electorate (Corsica). In metropolitan France, the only main exceptions to the pattern is Corrèze where Sarkozy lost 8.9% of the combined right’s vote in 2002 (Le Pen lost 1.3%). There is thus a striking symmetry between the evolution of the right’s vote with that of the traditional FN map.

However, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s gains and loses were not spread out homogeneously over the country. Where did the FN lose the most, and where did the FN show the strongest resistance? The map below shows the evolution of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s support between 2002 and 2007, drawn up by 1986-2009 constituency. Brown indicate constituencies where Le Pen’s support increased between 2002 and 2007, while varying shades of blue indicates constituencies where his support decline between 2002 and 2007, with darker shades indicating a larger decline.

% change between Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 2007 performance and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 2002 performance by legislative constituency (1986-2009 redistricting)

The Three/Four Worlds of FN Voters

In general, Jean-Marie Le Pen lost the most support where the FN traditionally does best: the Mediterranean coast, the Garonne valley, Rhône-Alpes, Alsace-Moselle and the greater Parisian basin. From the map, we pick out three or four major traditional FN voters, which progressively morphs into another type.

The first type we can distinguish is a petite bourgeoisie (lower middle-classes), in many cases retirees or small employees, concentrated mostly along the Mediterranean coast. They are not all that poor, but they are not traditionally considered as being part of the more affluent elites, and by their social status as petit bourgeois they are strongly individualist and deeply conservative. The region was too urban and industrialized to be Poujadist in 1956 (except Vaucluse, less industrial, and Poujade’s best department in 1956), but in their concerns the first type is somewhat Poujadist. In Provence, a fair number of these voters may be of pied noir ancestry, but in 2007 it is perhaps a bit ridiculous to say they’re all pieds noirs. Living in a region with a large North African population and with particularly high crime rates (especially Marseille or the Alpes-Maritimes), the FN has always been – since 1984 – very strong with this first type of voters. To an extent, their vote for the FN might be a protest vote, but it is not entirely that and in large part it could be constructed as a conservative vote concerned with North African immigration, insecurity and diametrically opposed to left-wing conceptions of the state and society.

In the Vaucluse, traditionally the FN stronghold by excellence, the FN tradition is born out of historical factors (less industrial, an old reactionary-conservative base, a vibrant Poujadist movement, the Algerian war and the OAS) and of contemporary social factors (an important agricultural sector employing farm workers, a petite bourgeoisie and lower middle-classes).

The first type is strongest on the Mediterranean coast, especially in the Var and Alpes-Maritimes (where it is the most conservative and affluent). A similar type of electorate (let’s call it type 1-bis), lower middle-class and equally concerned with immigration and insecurity, can be found in suburban or exurban communities, especially in the Rhône-Alpes region. It is especially strong in old working-class hinterland, but which has increasingly been transformed into average income middle-class bedroom communities. Unemployment in areas such as Meyzieu (Rhône) or Nord-Isère is not particularly high – in fact it is below average – so it is not the protest vote of poor suburbs with high unemployment – rather it is a conservative vote about immigration and insecurity (they are located close to working-class suburbs with high immigration such as Vénissieux), like in the Var or Alpes-Maritimes. The left-wing roots of these regions have been dropping like flies in recent years, as the contest in places such as Meyzieu becomes increasingly UMP and FN.

In terms of social categories, the first type is largely composed of employees and professions intermédiaires (a blanket term for broadly middle-class people). But these categories, like that of ouvrier, is far from homogeneous. They are all divided by some fairly key schisms in terms of their comparative political attitudes. Employees, generally the second lowest step on the “social ladder” in France behind the broad ouvriers category, are divided between those who work in small businesses (PME-PMI in France, including construction – BTP or agrifood) and in commerce (vendors, cashiers) versus those who work in the public sector (education, health, social services). The FN performs strongly with the first type of employees (small businesses) but performs very poorly with the second category. A similar public-private divide is found with the middle-class categories. Again, the FN performs well with those middle-level employees in the private sector (construction, small businesses, commerce) where the fear of losing their job is pretty big. On the other hand, the FN usually registers its worst results with middle-level public employees including teachers. The FN, like the traditional right, performs well with non-salaried self-employed workers (including the old, stereotypical FN-voting shopkeepers). The FN may use populist quasi-statist rhetoric, but its base often reflects some of the most economically liberal, anti-statist views out there.

The second type is somewhat similar to the first type, but it is less affluent and less urban. We can call this type a rural conservative vote, a phenomenon which is particularly pronounced in Alsace where the FN has performed well in lily-white small towns (often more Protestant than Catholic) with an older population particularly touched by concerns over immigration (which is particularly important in a border region like Alsace and in cities like Mulhouse). While there is a very strong working-class base throughout Alsace, unemployment is very low in some of these areas, so it is hard to see it as a protest vote of economically declining regions. It is, however, because of its rural element, more Poujadist in its orientation than the first type was.

The third type is an old white working-class vote, higher in in communities which concentrate both high unemployment (industrial decline) and proximity to large immigrant communities. The third type is particularly low-income, and it is the most left-leaning of the FN’s three/four types. The third type is important in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Moselle, parts of the Haut-Rhin (in the potash mining communities), the Montbéliard area and some regions such as the Yssengelais in the Haute-Loire.

Some people want to make you believe that the FN is strong in all working-class communities, no matter what. I would like them to explain to me why the FN is weak in Carmaux, Decazeville, Saint-Nazaire and even Longwy. The other misconception is that the FN’s working-class vote is made up in large part of old left-wingers or former PCF voters. This is truer now than it was in 1984, but PCF voters are actually those least likely to vote FN. A micro analysis looking at FN votes across working-class areas shows that old PCF strongholds are the least receptive to the the FN. In the past, a good part of the FN’s working-class electorate came from the 30% or so of working-class voters who were traditionally right-wing. Right-wing working-class communities such as Cluses, Saint-Amarin, Freyming-Merlebach or Stiring-Wendel are some of the FN’s rock-ribbed strongholds. The Marxist left never gained a foothold in these regions, and the FN emerged as the main alternative to the right in those regions. Of course, since 1995, there has been an increasing element of gaucho-lepénisme, denoting a certain kind of traditional white working-class left-wing voter who votes for the FN yet often returns to his left-wing roots in the runoff.

The third type’s vote is far more likely to be a protest vote. Unemployment is not necessarily high, but it is on average probably highest in these type of regions than in the first two types. In the stereotypical community of the third type, Hénin-Beaumont, unemployment in 2006 was 13.2% which is actually pretty low by the standards of the mining basin. It is not necessarily a protest vote against politicians of the “UMPS” but a protest vote against unemployment, industrial decline, immigration and insecurity (for those voters, the four problems are closely linked to one another). It is no longer a more well-off conservative vote, and it is the least Poujadist type of electorate.

A hybrid of the second type – the rural conservative vote – and the third type – the WWC vote – is a kind of distant, isolated rural or exurban vote which is increasingly a protest vote in not-too-affluent “forgotten communities” against isolation from urban cores, their intellectual “tolerant” elites and exorbitant property prices in urban areas (such as Paris or Lyon). It is property prices and white flight which has pushed this populaire (old, low-income, traditionally working-class or working poor electorate) electorate of working-class tradition though not, in many cases, of unionized large industrial working-class tradition. The departments of the Meuse, Haute-Marne, Marne, Aube, Aisne and other parts of Picardie concentrates a good part of this vote, but it can be observed in the Vexin and the Perche (which is more rural than exurban). Unemployment or immigration is not particularly high (in fact, it is likely below average) but they are still touched by economic problems, criminality and the effects of immigration.

These are what I construe as the three general types of electorate, which are in some cases similar to one another but in other regards are rather different. Their difference can be seen in the reaction of these three types to the Sarkozyst tentation.

The first type reacted the most to the Sarkozyst tentation, as can be seen by Le Pen’s heavily loses along the Mediterranean and in Rhône-Alpes. In the Alpes-Maritimes, where Sarkozy won his best result in France in the first round (43.6%), Le Pen’s loses were heavy and concentrated in the most affluent and conservative regions: -14.26 in Cannes, -12 in Antibes, -11.95 in Cagnes-sur-Mer, between -12.4 and -13.3 in Nice, -11.9 in Menton. In the Var, the results are similar: -12.67 in Fréjus and Saint-Raphaël, -10.4 in Draguignan, -9.5 in Hyères, -6.7 and -7.9 in Toulon’s two constituencies or -10.1 in La Seyne. Loses were equally as heavy in Aubagne (-9.7), Gardanne (-8.7), Orange (-10.8), Carpentras (-9.9), Nîmes-centre (-11.7), Vauvert and Aigues-Mortes (-11.2), Béziers (-12), Sète (-10.6) or Montpellier-sud and Lattes (-10.3). For these more affluent, conservative petit bourgeois, Sarkozy’s rhetoric about work (his appeal to la France qui se lève tôt), immigration and insecurity had a distinct appeal. These voters, not all that much into voting FN for the sake of protest but more for specific reasons, saw Sarkozy as somebody who took up Le Pen’s concerns while being less dangerous, less radical, younger, more realistic and more able to deal with those issues.

The type 1-bis, similar to the first type in terms of preoccupations, also reacted favourably to Sarkozy’s appeal. Le Pen’s loses were heavy in places such as Meyzieu (-13.6), Bourgoin/La-Tour-du-Pin (-10.1), Givors (-10.8) or Romans-sur-Isère (-9.5). It is a similar type of suburban middle-class, concerned with the law-and-order thematic and perhaps Sarkozy’s “la valeur travail” meritocratic rhetoric.

The second type, the rural conservative vote, was the other category which responded most favourably to Nicolas Sarkozy. Jean-Marie Le Pen had done very well in Alsace in 2002, but did relatively poorly in the region in 2007 (he lost 9.89% in Alsace, the highest of any region). Losses were heaviest in Strasbourg Nord (-10.9), Strasbourg Sud (-10), Wissembourg (-10.41), Haguenau (-10.7), Illkirch-Graffenstaden (-11.4), Molsheim (-10.8), Mulhouse Est (-10.5), Altkirch-Thann (-10.2) and Hunigue (-10.1).

The third type did not react as favourably, but a sort of split decision occurred. Le Pen’s loses were very pronounced in traditionally conservative working-class areas such as Forbach (-10.8), Saint-Avold (-9.6), Altkirch-Thann (-10.2) and Yssingeaux/Le Puy Est (-8). They were equally pretty heavy in more left-leaning working-class areas such as Firminy (-10.4), Audincourt (-8.3), Moyeuvre-Grande (-8) and Rombas (-8.4). However, where the FN vote is in large part an old white working-class protest vote against immigration, unemployment and economic decline, Le Pen’s loses were rather small. This is the case in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais: -1.6 in Béthune, -0.1 in Bruay, -2.1 in Liévin, -3 in Marchiennes, -1.8 in Calais, -4.4 in Lens, -4 in Douai though amusingly -6 in Hénin-Beaumont.

The hybrid of the second and third types, the ”forgotten communities” vote, was the most resistant to Nicolas Sarkozy’s appeal. In these lower middle-class or populaire exurban or rurban isolated communities of working-class or light industrial tradition, Le Pen resisted well. Loses were below the national average in departments such as the Aisne (-3.9), Meuse (-4), Cher (-4.1), Indre (-3.5), Haute-Marne (-5.4), Marne (-5.5), Vosges (-5.3), Seine-Maritime (-4.8) and of course the Pas-de-Calais (-2.4). Therefore, Nicolas Sarkozy’s rhetoric on law and order, work and authority was better received by traditional FN voters who are more affluent (and urban/suburban) than those who are less affluent or rural, whose vote for the FN is driven heavily by a deeply ingrained anti-establishment streak.

An Ifop analysis of those Le Pen 2002 voters who switched to Sarkozy versus those who did not reveals a similar contrast: those who switched to Sarkozy included 35% of cadres or professions intermédiaires (and 44% of ouvriers and 13% of farmers or shopkeepers), while those who remained loyal to the fold were heavily working-class: 59% ouvrier against 23% of cadres or professions intermédiaires (and 14% of farmers or shopkeepers).

The effects of exurbanization and urban sprawl (or périurbanisation) on the FN’s vote since the 1980s is particularly striking. In 1984, the FN’s vote was heavily concentrated in urban areas reaching peaks in urban or inner suburban areas, but weaker in rural areas. In 2007, the FN vote had been almost entirely drained out of the core of major urban areas such as Paris or Lyon, but was stronger in rural or exurban areas. A spatial analysis of the FN’s vote in 1995, 2002 and 2007 (by Loïc Ravenel at the Université de Besançon) is particularly revealing of the effects of urban sprawl. In 1995, Le Pen received his national average in urban cores and won his best results 25km from the urban core before progressively declining (with a final bump in areas 100km or more from the core). In 2002, Le Pen won about 1% less than average in urban cores and won his best results 35km from the urban core before declining (with another, less pronounced, bump 100km away). Finally, in 2007, Le Pen performed about 2% below average in urban cores, and wins his best results 35-45km away from the urban core while the subsequent decline is less pronounced than in past years (and the 100km away bump is far more pronounced). In 1995, Le Pen was at or above national average in an circle 0 to 55km from the urban core. In 2002, Le Pen was at or above national average in a circle encompassing areas 15 to 65km from the core. In 2007, Le Pen was at or above national average in a circle encompassing areas 15 to 90km from the core.

Le Pen’s decrepitude in 2007 was particularly pronounced in urban and suburban areas, except perhaps in Paris where Le Pen lost only 4.8% – perhaps because the FN’s collapse in Paris was already completed in 2002. There is a general pattern of major decline in support for Le Pen between 2002 and 2007 in most urban areas: Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Montpellier, Perpignan, Toulouse, Rennes, Lorient, Brest, Le Havre, Rouen, Amiens, Lille, Metz or Dijon. The FN electorate in these cities, which is already rather small as it is, is probably composed in large part of more affluent middle-classes who responded favourably, like the first type, to Sarkozy’s appeal on the basis of insecurity, authority, immigration or work.

Le Pen’s Zones of Resistance

In metropolitan France, Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to increase his support in two constituencies: Ault (Vimeu, +1.12%) and Abbeville (Ponthieu, +0.8%) in the Somme, both in the Baie de Somme. The Baie de Somme, a particularly important hunting region (waterfowl or gibier d’eau), had been the CPNT’s candidate (Jean Saint-Josse)’s best constituencies in 2002. The CPNT electorate, especially in Picardie and Normandie, is particularly right-wing, and Saint-Josse voters in those regions transferred in large part to Le Pen in the runoff, some of the only non-Le Pen voters to do so (see here). In 2007, with the CPNT’s collapse, Le Pen was due to capture some of this far-right friendly electorate. CPNT’s vote may also explain, in part, Le Pen’s strong resistance in the rural areas of the Centre, Poitou, Charentes and Aquitaine.

In the Limousin, the heart of Chiraquie, Sarkozy badly underperformed the right’s performance in 2002 with Chirac at its helm, as the favourite-son vote of Chiraquie flowed to Royal or Bayrou, but also Le Pen in a far more modest part. In Chirac’s constituency (Ussel), Sarkozy won 12% less than the combined right in 2002, and Le Pen lost only 0.02% between the two elections. In Bernadette Chirac’s canton (Corrèze), it appears as if Le Pen increased his result by atleast 1% between 2002 and 2007.

Jean-Marie Le Pen held his 2002 result in Corsica (15.7% in 2002, 15.3% in 2007). The FN’s presidential performance in Corsica far surpasses its paltry results in legislative or regional elections, largely because some of the more radical Corsican nationalist voters tend to vote for Le Pen in presidential election, largely because of the xenophobic and ethnonationalist undertones of some of the radical nationalists’ rhetoric on the island.

The Bases of Marine Le Pen’s Surge?

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s collapse in 2007 did not lead to the eradication of the FN as a potent political force. Following the FN’s weak showings in 2008 and 2009, many had started presuming that Nicolas Sarkozy might be able to do to the FN what Mitterrand had done to the PCF: kill the party as a major political actor by eating up its electorate. Following the 2010 regionals, and especially the 2011 cantonals, there is no chance of that happening. Marine Le Pen, the daughter and successor of the patriarch, regularly polls at 15-18% in the run-up to next year’s presidential election and she poses an underlying threat to Nicolas Sarkozy’s candidacy. Marine has been able, pretty spectacularly, to lift a dying (and bankrupt) party from the brink of political extinction and return to its former splendour. What can her father’s collapse in 2007 teach us about the rejuvenation of the FN?

Her father’s stronger resistance in populaire regions such as the NPDC seems to have laid the fertile base for Marine’s restructuring of the FN along the bases of a solidly working-class electorate as exemplified by her Hénin-Beaumont stronghold. Now more than ever, the FN seems to be deeply rooted as the “premier parti ouvrier” (largest party with working-class voters). In 2010, with Marine Le Pen as the FN’s regional candidate, the FN outperformed its 2007 performance in all but one constituency of the NPDC (Valérie Létard’s constituency in Valenciennes).

The third type seems to have remained ever so solidly frontiste and the 2010 regional elections showed the elimination of Sarkozy’s gains from the FN in conservative working-class areas such as the Moselle coal basin. The first type seems to have returned to its traditional far-right roots as well: in 2010, Jean-Marie Le Pen very much outran his 2007 performance in PACA especially in the Var (+6.5), Alpes-Maritimes (+8.5) and Bouches-du-Rhône (+6.7). The corruption cases surrounding Sarkozy’s government and discontent surrounding the government’s criminality record seems to be the main causes for the first type’s sudden reversal between 2007 and 2010-2011.

Type 1-bis has not returned in droves, but it has returned in good part: the FN gained ground in suburban Lyon and Saint-Etienne in 2010. The FN, in the 2010 regional elections, showed surprising vitality in urban and suburban areas (Oise, Aube, Loiret, Seine-et-Marne, Val-d’Oise, Yvelines but also Toulouse, Bordeaux or Lille) where Le Pen had suffered the most in 2007. One element at play here might be unhappy traditional right-wing voters whose vote for the FN is a conservative protest against Sarkozy (we had seen strong FN performances in some upscale areas of Paris in 2010), another element might be the result of the reversal of the type 1-bis electorate back to the FN.

The second type still seems the most reluctant to return to its FN tradition, with the FN still registering disappointing results in the Bas-Rhin in 2010. Interestingly, the FN’s 2010 results, compared to its 2007 performance, was not particularly strong in the areas where it had resisted well in 2007: the Somme, Ardennes, Meuse, Haute-Marne, northern Aisne and the Bray in Seine-Maritime. Other weak FN performances in 2010 vis-a-vis 2007 in departments such as the Ardennes, Haute-Saône, Côte-d’Or seem to be based on a strong local appeal of a favourite-son right-wing candidate (Warsmann, Joyandet, Sauvadet etc), while others might be based on local factors – Sébastien Jumel, the PCF-FG’s top candidate in Haute-Normandie, carried a strong personal appeal in the Bray and Dieppois, which might explain the FN’s relative weakness there in 2010.

The FN’s collapse in the 2007 presidential and legislative election did not mark the beginning of the end for the FN, in fact it only marked a spectacular but ultimately short-lived trough which the party has come out from looking rather strong. However, the differences in Nicolas Sarkozy’s appeal to the FN electorate reveals fascinating details about the different types of FN voters and their reasons for voting FN. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s strong resistance with the third type and the hybrid type revealed, by 2007, that the FN had become solidly encysted in lower-income regions with a populaire tradition, something which explains why Marine Le Pen has structured the FN’s revival around the third type and the hybrid type.

1984: Emergence of the FN

In 1956, the Poujadist movement won 11.5% of the vote and 51 seats, marking the first emergence of the far-right in the post-war era. The rapid death of the Poujadist in the wake of the crisis of May 1958 would leave the French far-right practically dead – save for the brief resurgence of 1962-1965 – until 1984 and the European elections.

The Front national (FN) had been founded in 1972, but until 1983 its support had remained derisory. In 1974, Jean-Marie Le Pen had won only 0.75% of the vote running in that year’s presidential election. Between 1973 and 1981, the FN’s emergence was checked a bit by the dissidence of the Ordre Nouveau faction (which created the PFN in 1973), which had been one of the two main founding factions on the FN in 1972 alongside Jean-Marie Le Pen’s conservative nationaux. The intense competition between the PFN’s Pascal Gauchon and Le Pen in 1981 had prevented either of them from running in that year’s election. In the 1982 cantonal elections, the far-right won only 0.2% of the vote, but in four cantons the FN obtained pretty spectacular results. Similarly, in the 1983 municipal elections, the far-right nationally did very poorly but Le Pen won over 11% running in Paris. The turning point for the FN, the date at which the FN as a serious electoral force was born, was the September 1983 municipal by-election in Dreux, a working-class city in Eure-et-Loir. Jean-Pierre Stirbois’ list won 16.7% of the vote in the first round, and merged his list with that of the parliamentary right which would eventually win the election. At this point, national media started paying serious attention to the FN and Le Pen’s media presence increased significantly between 1983 and the June 17, 1984 European elections. In that election, the FN won 10.95%, basically tying the Communist Party which was a big deal.

European elections have since 1999 been pretty mediocre for the far-right, as a lot of its traditional protest-vote electorate usually doesn’t bother to vote. However, European elections are very much tailor-made for the FN, or at least they were before people stopped caring. The electoral system, list PR in a national constituency, allowed parties such as the FN with a weak grassroots implantation and activist network to gain a national presence through the leadership of a particularly charismatic leader like as Le Pen. The European elections have traditionally been low-turnout affairs and stakes have been pretty low, allowing voters to vote as they wish – often by expressing discontent with the government and/or main opposition.

The rapid disillusion which followed Mitterrand’s election in 1981; a period which was marked by an economic crisis, economic changes and rising unemployment; played a crucial role in the emergence of the FN. The traditional misconception is that the FN immediately took votes from the left, and particularly the PCF whose decline by this point was marked and unabated. The reality is not that simple, especially in 1984. In its first incarnation, in 1984, the FN was very much on the right in terms of its electorate.

% vote for the FN by legislative constituency (1978-1986 redistricting)

Parties usually have pretty stable geographic bases of strength. Their strength in particular areas varies over times, and over a longer period of time certain regions trend away or towards that party but it is generally a long-term process over ten years or so. It is pretty rare for one party’s stronghold in one election to be a terre de mission (weak zone) for it five years later. The FN’s electoral implantation east of the famous Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan line is stable, but the FN’s electorate jumps around a whole lot from one election to another.

The Mediterranean coast has been a constant for the FN and the French far-right since 1962. It has always been strong there, and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour had won his best results along the Mediterranean and in the Garonne valley in 1965, which had been the region most opposed to the Évian accords in 1962. Jean-Marie Le Pen had done best there in 1974. The main factor at play here is the pied-noir factor. The pieds-noirs were the French citizens who lived in French Algeria (or North Africa) until Algerian independence and who were shipped back to France en masse following Algeria’s independence in 1962. They settled largely in lower-income or lower middle-class neighborhoods along the Mediterranean coast, from Menton to Perpignan, or in the Garonne river valley from Bordeaux to Castres. The pieds-noirs strongly supported French Algeria and resented the “abandonment” of Algeria by de Gaulle in 1962. The pieds-noirs were so viscerally anti-Gaullist, for example, that Tixier-Vignancour actually supported Mitterrand over Charles de Gaulle in the 1965 runoff. The pieds-noirs felt alienated from the power elites, both because of 1962 and because they were largely “abandoned” and shunned once they settled in France.

The other factor in this region (at least in 1984) was North African immigration. One can easily imagine what kind of cocktail comes out of a mix of pieds-noirs – colonialist in their mindset – and North African immigrants. It is a mix perfect for the emergence of a strong FN vote.

There is a strong correlation, at the departmental level, between a high percentage of immigrants (or foreign-born) and a strong FN vote. Unlike Poujadism in 1956, which was the last stand of a traditional and rural France opposed to urbanization and rapid industrialization, the FN vote by 1984 and to this day is concentrated in the most urbanized and industrialized regions of France – that is – basically – the east of the country. These are regions which have attracted the most immigrants, mostly from North Africa, since the 1950. The highest proportion of immigrants are found in the industrial centers of the Parisian basin, Alsace-Lorraine, Rhône-Alpes (Lyon, Grenoble, Savoie) and the Mediterranean coast. The industrial crisis of the 1980s, especially pronounced in 1984, marked a certain popular rejection of immigration which had been increasing since the 1970s. In a context of high unemployment, the feeling that North African immigrants are unnecessary elements who jobs away from the locals is pretty pronounced. It is a battle between a native white population for whom the relative prosperity and good life of the trente glorieuses is past, and an immigrant population which is poorly integrated in French society and who struggle to find employment themselves.

The 1980s marked a period of socio-economic problems including unemployment, poor immigrant integration, urban decay, youth disillusion, poverty and criminality. For FN voters, the two variables of criminality and immigration are closely correlated to one another. Basically put, they hold that immigrants are the causes of criminality and contribute in large part to the insecurity of their neighborhoods. At a departmental level, it is certainly true that the map of immigration is similar to that of criminality as they are both predominantly urban and eastern. Whether it is a fair comparison or not is one’s own political view.

At a departmental level, you would probably find a strong correlation between high immigrant populations and strong FN vote. One of the reasons why I dislike simplistic analyses at a departmental level is that departments are large regions which include a number of different socio-economic realities. If you were to do an analysis comparing immigrants and FN vote at a cantonal level, you would a much weaker correlation. Simply put, the FN vote – especially in 1984 – was not concentrated in areas with large immigrant populations. Rather, similar to what can be seen with the BNP in places such as London, the far-right vote is strongest in peripheral areas bordering neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. It is perhaps not, in most cases, living side-by-side to North African immigrants but rather a fear of immigration and insecurity which causes a strong FN presence in one area. In most cases, these peripheral neighborhoods are lower middle-class suburban areas.

The above is a pretty broad explanation of the reasons for the FN vote, not only in 1984 but even today. It is certainly pretty interesting, but we’re making some broad generalizations on the type of voter the FN attracts and we are treating the FN electorate in 1984 as broadly equal to the FN electorate in 2007 or 2011.

The FN vote in 1984 was heavily right-wing in its origin. The traditional view is that the FN’s immediate success in 1983-1984 was caused by left-wing voters, especially former PCF voters. It might be true to an extent, and the left-wing portion of the FN electorate becomes increasingly larger after 1984. But in 1984, the FN attracted voters who had voted (if they had voted to begin with) for Giscard or Chirac in 1981, not Mitterrand. Some of this can be explained by the personality of the RPR-UDF’s list top candidate, Simone Veil. For the more conservative voters of the French right, the centrist, pro-European, viscerally anti-far right and socially liberal Veil was dangerously close to being a left-wing. The right had been radicalized somewhat by the participation of the PCF in the Mauroy government starting in May 1981, and in the international arena tensions were reaching new highs between the west and the Soviet bloc. It was not unusual for mainstream right-wing politicians, largely from the RPR, to talk about the “socialo-communist” threat which is nowadays something which only Le Pen Sr. says when he’s angry. At another level, the FN in its founding years still appealed to a type of more well-off bourgeois ultra-conservative voter who was traditionalist, socially conservative and not too fond of North Africans.

We see the right-wing nature of the FN’s electorate in 1984 by looking at a few particular constituencies. In Marseille, it did best (23-26%) in the downtown core, averagely well-off. It did almost as well (22.6%) in southern Marseille, which is very affluent, but did comparatively poorer (19.5% ) in northern Marseille, working-class and heavily left-wing. On the other hand, the FN vote is now far weaker in downtown and southern Marseille than in northern Marseille, which has become one of the FN’s strongholds. In the Greater Lyon, the FN’s electorate was not heavily marked in favour of any particular social class – it won 16.7% in Vénissieux, 16.8% in Villeurbanne and 18.5% in Vaulx-en-Velin/Meyzieu, but it is particularly interesting to note that it won 17.3% in the very affluent northern suburbs of Lyon (Caluire, Mont-d’Or). Compared to 2007 (the FN’s result in 1984 and 2007 was about equal – some 0.6% better in 1984), Le Pen won only 7.6% in Caluire. In the city of Lyon proper, the FN’s best showing was in a downtown constituency spanning parts of the 3rd and 7th arrondissements (notably including the very diverse Guillotière neigborhood), where it won 19.1%. The next two strongest results for Le Pen’s party was 17.8% in a constituency including (among others) the very bourgeois 6th and 16.5% in a constituency including (again among others) the very bourgeois 2nd. In Lille, the FN won 18.7% in a constituency including parts of working-class Tourcoing and the very bourgeois Marcq-en-Barœul. It is hard to say if the FN vote came heavily from Marcq or from Tourcoing, but a good chunk of it must still have come from the affluent Marcq, where Le Pen won only 8.6% in 2007. Yet again, the FN also did well in areas which are not at all bourgeois – 17.1% in Roubaix.

The FN’s support in Paris in 1984 is particularly interesting in that it forms some sort of peripheral belt extending from the Bois de Boulogne to Belleville and Charonne. In doing so, it breaks a particularly rigid political and social wall which has always divided the bourgeois west from the working-class east. The FN did well in working-class constituencies in the east (16-18%) but also did particularly well in the very affluent west: 16-17% in the 16th (the epitome of wealthy bourgeoisie), 19% in the 8th, 15.5% in the 7th, 16.8-17% in the 17th. In Neuilly, the FN won 17.6%, its best showing in the Hauts-de-Seine. The concentration of the far-right vote in Paris proper has jumped around, in 1995 it was particularly eastern, more mixed in 2002 and interestingly rather western in 2010. But in 2007, the FN did not do best in the affluent areas: 5% in Neuilly, 4% in the 16th and 8th and so forth.

The most interesting aspect of the FN vote in 1984 when compared to the FN vote in 2007 (which was, remember, about the same in percentage terms as 1984) is its heavily urban concentration. In 1984, besides the Mediterranean coast (pretty urbanized on its own terms), the other main base for the FN was the Parisian basin: 15.3% in Paris, 14.2% in the Hauts-de-Seine, 16% in Seine-Saint-Denis, 15% in the Val-d’Oise, 14.4% in the Yvelines, 14.6% in Seine-et-Marne, 13.9% in the Val-de-Marne and 12.4% in Essonne. These results, I didn’t check, are probably the FN’s record highs in most of these departments. The map also shows pretty well the FN’s very strong showings in other urban areas, notably Lyon and Marseille.

When looking at a map of the evolution of the FN between 1984 and 2007, an interesting outer ring of gains (FN stronger in 2007) surrounds almost perfectly the Parisian basin, which is on the contrary where the FN lost the most between 1984 and 2007. The FN receded by a full 10.7% in Paris, 8.6% in the Hauts-de-Seine, 6.9% in the 9-3 and 7% in the Yvelines. On the other hand, the FN gained between 4.4% and 4.6% in the Orne, Sarthe, Loir-et-Cher and Indre, and gained even more in the Aube (+5.5%), Haute-Marne (+6.4%), Aisne (+7.6%) and Somme (+4.6%).

One of the most interesting aspects of the FN vote between around 1984-1988 and 2007 is that it almost completely abandoned the urban areas and settled in more rural or exurban area. The FN in 1984 did best in areas which were at most 15-30 minutes away from the urban core (if they were not in the urban core itself!). In 2007, the FN did best in areas which are at least 1.5-2 hours away from the urban core (this is especially true in the Parisian Basin).

In 1984, the FN vote was largely urban or inner suburban. In 2007, the FN vote was largely rural or exurban (périurbain). In core urban areas, the FN lost over 10-15% of the vote between 1984 and 2007. On the other hand, in rural and exurban areas, the FN gained about the same amount between 1984 and 2007. Comparing in quick succession the FN’s map in the 1980s (84, 86, 88) with 1995, 2002 and 2007 the most striking aspect is the rapid dissolution of FN support in large urban areas such as Paris or Lyon (Marseille is a bit of an exception).

Two major factors can explain this evolution: white flight and socio-demographic changes. White flight is pretty obvious: lower-income residents have tended to move away from old neighborhoods which are becoming increasingly multi-ethnic. A factor closely related to the most important one, socio-demographic changes. Increasing property prices (especially in the Greater Paris) have chased low-income and lower middle-class inhabitants further and further away from the urban core and into the urban fringe into new exurbs. Urban and even inner suburban populations have been renewed by younger, more affluent professionals who in some cases might maintain the political orientation of their neighborhood despite the rapid demographic changes (this is the case in eastern Paris). Formerly working-class areas in eastern Paris or even old working-class suburbs such as Montreuil or Pantin have seen rapid demographic changes with the rise of a younger, affluent professional class which is, for obvious reasons, far less likely to vote FN. A look at a demographic map, especially in the Parisian region, confirms this: the urban cores and inner suburban areas have largely become well-educated, affluent and populated by professionals or cadres while lower-income categories are now more numerous in exurban areas. The FN certainly maintains a sizable vote in older (inner) suburbs in the 9-3 or Val-d’Oise which have remained largely low-income or with large immigrant populations (or close to those areas), but it is nowhere near as impressive a base as in 1984.

To confirm the FN vote in 1984 as being largely urban or suburban, it is interesting to distinguish the constituencies where the FN vote was below average and where it was above average. It was above average in all but four constituencies of the Île-de-France region (Paris’ 5th arrondissement, Ivry-sur-Seine, Arcueil-Cachan and Les Ulis-Orsay). The FN’s strength extended into surrounding departments, which were already suburban by 1984 or had large cities with immigrant populations (Oise, Vexin, Dreux, Gien, Sens). In the north, it was heavily concentrated in and around Lille, in Alsace is was centered around Strasbourg and Mulhouse and in the southeast it was concentrated around Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Toulon and Nice).

The FN vote in 1984 was largely a homogeneously conservative white-collar and shopkeepers vote, while in 2007 the FN was largely a heterogeneous old white working-class and lower-income exurbanite vote. In 1984, the FN’s appeal to traditional working-class voters was limited. It did appeal to some working-class locales, but predominantly those which were Catholic and right-wing (Cluses, Forbach, Freyming). What is perhaps the best proof to shoot down claims that the FN ‘stole’ votes from the left in 1984 is the FN’s poor results in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais’ mining bassin. 5% in Liévin, 7% in Lens, 6.3% in Marchiennes, 7% in Denain, 4.5% in Bruay or 6.2% in Béthune. The FN interestingly won 9.2% in Hénin, but it is still below average. Even in other left-wing working-class areas the FN’s results were nothing to boast: 7% in Dunkerque, 7.8% in Calais, 7.2% in Dieppe or 8.3% in Rouen’s industrial hinterland. In Le Havre, the FN did best (10.9%) in the more conservative 6th constituency which included the posh Ste-Adresse than in the heavily left-wing 7th which included the PCF stronghold of Gonfreville-l’Orcher. In 2007, however, Le Pen won 13.4% in Gonfreville’s constituency (which also includes parts of Le Havre, Bolbec and Saint-Romain-de-Colbosc) and 12.5% in working-class northern Le Havre while only 8.9% in the posher southern Le Havre and Ste-Adresse constituency.

This left-wing working-class vote did not abandon the left in 1984. It would only do so later, starting in 1986 and reaching a peak in 1995 and 2002. It would take more disillusion with the left in power, the evolution of the left’s demographic bases and further years of unemployment and industrial decline for this vote to fall into the FN’s arms. The department where the FN gained the most between 1984 and 2007 was the Pas-de-Calais, where Le Pen’s 2007 performance was 9.35% above the FN’s result in 1984.

Rural areas had not been particularly favourable to the FN in 1984, even in eastern France. The FN certainly did well, but its performances in the heart of rural Alsace, Champagne and Bourgogne was not particularly impressive. Clearly, the FN’s vote in 1984 was concentrated heavily in urban and suburban areas, both wealthier ones and more lower middle-class ones; areas which had been touched first hand by unemployment, immigration and criminality. The FN’s growth in rural areas would begin in 1986, when a Poujadist-like lower-income rural conservative electorate would begin voting for the FN in places like rural Alsace.

For certain parties, studying their geographic bases an election after another quickly becomes redundant as the same strongholds remain strongholds and the same weak spots remain weak spots. However, in the FN’s case, it is rarely redundant to do so. Its geographic implantation may appear to be unchanging (and in part it is), but in the details it is fascinating to observe how the FN’s electorate jumps around from one election to another. In 1984 and 2007, although polling the same percentage, the FN’s base in 1984 has little to do with its rock-ribbed presidential electorate of 2007.

The Poujadist movement in 1956

1951, previously covered saw the forceful emergence of Charles de Gaulle’s RPF with 21.7% of the popular vote. However, less than five years later, the Gaullist movement which had marked French politics since 1947 was, by all accounts, practically dead. Yet, only a bit more than two years later, Gaullism was resurgent with the birth of the Fifth Republic. After the RPF in 1951, the novelty of 1956 was the emergence of the Poujadiste movement (mouvement Poujadiste), named after its founder, Pierre Poujade. Its emergence marks the first post-war far-right movement to grow in France, and the first far-right movement in the ‘modern’ sense – that is, rid of its pre-war monarchist or elitist-nationalist overtones. Its emergence, however, is all the more puzzling given that the years 1953 to 1955 were, in the most part, synonymous with economic growth, rapid development and also the stabilization of prices following the inflationist years which had directly succeeded the end of the war. Usually, it is economic instability and recession which has allowed for the emergence of the far-right in France.

France in the post-war era, like most of western Europe, was undergoing rapid economic transformations, the most notable of which were urbanization and a shift away from family businesses or farms. The primary victims of the rapid economic changes were individual farmers (agriculteurs) and small shop-owners (artisans et commerçants). As a kind of petit bourgeois, the shopkeeper or merchant is at the confines of the middle and lower classes, not entirely bourgeois like those above him but not entirely working-class (or populaire) like those below him. In a certain way, he is constantly fearful of proletarization or déclassement. In this vein, the shopkeeper, merchant or small-town employee – republican, egalitarian and fiercely individualistic – have always been wary of socio-economic changes which always threaten to crush him. He is not a capitalist like the upper or middle bourgeoisie, because he feels his way of life threatened by the “aggressive capitalism”. He is not either a natural revolutionary, because he resents ‘proletarization’. Unsurprising, therefore, that these instinctively conservative (in the pure sense of the term) and individualistic voters should offer a natural breeding ground and captive clientele for all sorts of populist conservatives, the Georges Boulanger of times past and the Le Pens of today.

1956 was a period of rapid economic growth in France, especially with the emergence of large commercial surfaces, supermarket and price-point retailers – known in France in 1956 as the prisunic (equivalent of dollar stores in North America). Supermarkets and price-point retailers were a direct threat to small-town shops, with the individual butcher stop, the bakery or the delicatessen. Besides these broader factors and the social psyche, there was a key contextual factor at work here in 1956.

In 1953, Antoine Pinay’s government had succeeded in dramatically reducing inflation – from 12% in 1952 to -1.8% in 1953, then 0.5%-1% in 1954 and 1955. Inflation had been high in the post-war era, peaking at 59% in 1948 and never dropping any lower than 10-11%. The main benefactor of inflation was the small shopkeeper, who amassed more and more wealth and cared much less about taxes given that it was paid with depreciating money. These businesses had benefited spectacularly from inflation, but they had failed to adapt to modern economic conditions of retail. The Poujadist movement was the child born of deflation and the stabilization of prices.

The traditional literature treats the birth of Poujadism as an anti-tax revolt (révolte du fisc), but the tax revolt which started brewing in 1953 was more the reason of Poujadism’s birth than its deep cause. Inflation had made taxes bearable, deflation made them unbearable. A state of affairs intensified by the government’s “fiscal Gestapo” which strictly enforced the collection of taxes. The Union de défense des commerçants et artisans (UDCA) was created in 1953, as a corporatist union founded by Pierre Poujade, a stationer from Saint-Céré (Lot), with his great oratory talents and room-filling charisma.

Derided as fascist, true in part, it is fairer and better to view the UDCA was a defensive reaction by small-town shopkeepers, merchants and small farmers who were attached to the founding republican values of private property, individualism and small community but who were almost condemned to disappear in the wake of France’s economic evolution in the post-war era. Depending on your perspective, the instinctive conservatism of yesteryear had perhaps been transformed into a reactionary movement, violent reaction to a ‘natural evolution’ of things.

For Poujade and the UDCA, the culprits were the same: the big businesses and corporate leaders, le fisc, the revolutionary trade unions, the left and its anti-individualism, the corrupt parliament and the regime of parties, foreigners and all those who were “selling off” France and its empire (especially Algeria); all with a dose of conspiratorial antisemitism, attacking the Jews who allegedly owned the big business and big retailers but also thinly veiled jabs at Pierre Mendès France’s Jewish faith.

The surprise of the January 1956 was the Poujadist movement, whose lists (Union et fraternité française, UFF or UDCA etc) won 51 seats and some 11.5% of the popular vote. The map below shows the results of Poujadists by 1936 constituency.

Gray departments had no Poujadist lists.

For those of used to the tidy and orderly map of the French far-right in its FN incarnation, the first thought which comes to mind upon seeing this map is a very puzzled “what the hell is this mess?” Indeed, when we’re used to the tidy map of the FN and its bases east of the Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan line, this map is an disorderly mish-mash of colours all over the place with little pattern. What is even more puzzling is that the Poujadists, oft called the ancestor of the FN – with reason – should have a map which is diametrically different from that of the far-right as we would learn to know it some 30 years later. The Poujadists are almost totally absent from a line going from Le Havre to Belfort, where the FN today flexes its muscles the best. Certainly some of the Poujadist strongholds such as the Vaucluse, Gard and Hérault have always given the FN strong showings, but other strong points – Maine-et-Loire, Charente-Maritime, Indre-et-Loire, Deux-Sèvres, Aveyron, Gers and even Isère to an extent – are not places where the FN does particularly well.

The most basic explanation for the Poujadist’s success would be to conclude that they simply took the succession of the Gaullists. It is not a ridiculous proposition. The RPF in 1951 and the Poujadists in 1956 both appealed to a certain conservative anti-system and anti-regime vote – both were in direct opposition to the Fourth Republic and the rhetoric of the Poujadists in 1956 vis-a-vis the ‘regime of the parties’ and the anti-parliamentarianism were quite similar to the Gaullist rhetoric of 1951 which targeted the regime of the parties. A cursory look at the raw statistics leads us to the same conclusion: besides the MRP, all other major forces (PCF, SFIO, Radicals, moderates) maintained or built on their 1951 electorates in 1956. The MRP only fell from 12.5% to a bit less than 11%, and the MRP had little in common with the Poujadists. However, the Gaullists won 21.7% in 1951 but their successors in 1956 won 4.5%. The far-right and Poujadists won 12%. We could conclude, pretty easily, that while not all Gaullists voted Poujadist, most Poujadists had voted Gaullist some four years prior.

Problem solved? No, we’ve only dug ourselves into a hole. If you remember the 1951 map of the RPF’s strength, we had seen that its bases had been concentrated almost quasi-entirely in northern France or what was occupied France in 1941. It had been absent from the bulk of southern France. In contrast, the Poujadists were more geographically spread out but they had their big strongholds (Vaucluse, Hérault, Gard, Aveyron) in southern France and only the Maine-et-Loire was a stronghold of the RPF and Poujadists. It is possible and even logical that the Poujadists received the support of many voters who had voted RPF in 1951. But like Boulanger in 1889, Poujadism cut vertically across all established political parties. He even took left-wing votes. In most cases, the main victims of Poujadism were the right. The return of Gaullist voters to their traditional right-wing (moderate, MRP) roots likely hide compensated loses to the Poujadists.

There were, after all, key differences between Gaullism and Poujadism. Gaullism, through its leading figure, appealed widely to a certain conservative electorate, through its emphases on order, hierarchy and stability. Through its historical roots, it likely appealed very much to those who had been the fiercest of résistants during the War. On the other hand, Poujadism did not have a similar appeal to a conservative electorate fond of order and stability but rather appealed to another electorate, this one either apolitical or weakly politicized, anti-parliamentarian in its sympathies and quite keen to Poujadism populism and nationalism. In addition, often derided as fascist (and its leader as ‘Poujadolf’), the Poujadists were more likely to appeal to those more supportive of the Vichy regime and its traditionalist, “old France” rhetoric. Finally, Gaullism was in some ways a right-wing reformist movement in 1951 despite its Bonapartist overtones, it appealed to modern and industrial France. Poujadism was in many ways reactionary, the last-straw defense of a drowning type of old and traditional France. It had little in its rhetoric to appeal to modern and industrial France.

Poujadism through its roots in the UDCA and Pierre Poujade carried a distinctive appeal to shopkeepers and merchants. I think it quite fair to assume that most shopkeepers and merchants voted Poujadist. For curiosity’s sake, I attempted to compare the Poujadist vote by department in 1956 to the percentage of artisans, commerçants et chefs d’entreprises in each department in 1968 (the earliest I have departmental census data for). It isn’t perfect, the two data sets being 12 years apart, but the general pattern in terms of distribution of artisans/commerçants can be reasonably expected to have been similar in 1956. In general, there seems to be a general increase in Poujadist votes as the weight of artisans/commerçants increases. But there are some big outliers: the best Poujadist department (Vaucluse, 22.5%) had only 12.3% of shopkeepers and merchants in 1968. Similarly, the highest percentage of shopkeepers and merchants in 1968 (Alpes-Maritimes, 16.2%) gave the Poujadists only 7.3. I calculated the correlation coefficient to be 0.31, indicating a very weak medium positive correlation. It is even stranger when you take only departments with over 12% of artisans/commerçants in 1968, the correlation is actually negative: -0.35! In those with over 13% of artisans/commerçants, there is a strong negative correlation again: -0.68.

While it likely that a good number of Poujadist voters were small or medium business owners in small towns in rural ‘declining’ France, its success cannot be explained solely by that factor. In departments where the Poujadists did least well, it is likely that their success was largely limited to the UDCA’s base social category. But the Poujadist success was built on a heterogeneous base of support, especially in the Midi and the centre-west. By its form as a conservative populist reaction to rapid industrialization and “aggressive capitalism”, the Poujadist rhetoric was not only a sectional message designed for one social group, namely shopkeepers.

Besides the growth of mass retail and large commercial surfaces, the other victim of deflation post-1953 were small landholders – agriculteurs exploitants. Small landholders, owning and cultivating their own parcel of land, were the product of the Revolution and the rural bedrock of the Republic in the 1870s. Like shopkeepers, small landholders were not particularly affluent but by their ownership of land they were (in most cases) instinctively conservative and deeply attached to the republican values of private property. But like shopkeepers, they were the ‘forgotten’ victims left behind by economic modernization.

Inflation had been advantageous for farmers who had gotten artificially rich. Deflation brought along a massive drop in prices, and thus a loss in revenue for farmers. Inflation had been advantageous for farmers not only because they got rich but also because it had provided them with the revenue to pay for expensive new, modern machinery. The drop in prices post-1953 meant that this revenue dried up, and small landholders found themselves struggling to continue the ‘silent revolution’ in French agriculture. In many cases, this sped up the (inevitable?) decline of small property and the amalgamation of several unviable small properties into larger, modernized exploitations.

Owners of small family farms and small business owners, had, in many cases, many shared common interests even beyond politics. In a small town feeling, they knew each other and were allied and linked to each other. In a certain sense, one’s destiny impacted the other’s destiny and they were perhaps even liked to a certain extent. Poujadism should not be understood solely in terms of a single class’ defensive reaction, which it was in part, but as being a broader movement of resistance to economic modernization. André Siegfried had talked about Poujadism as being a rear-guard’s defensive reaction pitting rural peasant against cities, the province against Paris, the artisans against factories, of regions in decline against booming neo-industrial regions and of the individual against “an invading socialist state”.

No surprise then that Poujadism viewed in those terms would carry an equally as powerful appeal to those who in 1956 suffered a plight similar to that of the shopkeeper. In the Orléanais, the Beauce and the Brie, Poujadism appealed to rural workers in the wheat basket of the country. In the Berry and parts of Champagne, Poujadism appealed to poor peasants in declining regions with an outdated agricultural economy. In a region stretching from continental Brittany to the Anjou, Poitou and Charentes, Poujadism broke cleavages such as the all-important religious cleavage to appeal to regions where rural poverty was everywhere a reality, mixed in (in certain cases) with a local base of shopkeepers.

In the Languedoc and especially the Vaucluse, the strength of Poujadism was furthered by the local crisis in the wine industry which swelled the ranks of the discontent. The Poujadists, judging simply from an unscientific inductive observation of the map, seem to have enjoyed some success with wine growers in the Loire valley, the Bordelais and Beaujolais but far more limited success with those in Bourgogne and Champagne.

So far we have added one variable to our explanation besides shopkeepers, which had a 0.31 correlation. We have added the variable of revenue. Measured against the individual average revenue in each department in 1951 (measured with France being 100, and departments being either above or below 100 based on individual revenue), we find a negative correlation of -0.27, indicating that Poujadists did better in departments with lower individual revenue. But the correlation is rather weak.

In some isolated areas like the Aveyron, the Alps or Isère, Poujadism was a reaction of ‘regions in decline’ as Siegfried had noted. The Aveyron’s population declined by 4.9% between 1946 and 1954, and the Poujadists (18.8% of registered voters in the department) did best in those more mountainous areas who suffered the highest decline. In taking only those departments whose population declined between 1946 and 1954, the correlation between population decline and Poujadist vote is 0.53, a pretty strong correlation. But it is not universal: Lozère had the steepest decline at -9% yet the Poujadists won only 8% of the vote. The Cantal and Haute-Loire both declined by more than the Aveyron, but had weaker Poujadist results (11%). Local factors, some of them political such as other incumbents, lists and the strength of the Poujadist slate must be considered.

Isère is a particularly interesting department. Its population grew by 9% between 1946 and 1954, and it was quite industrialized, yet the Poujadists did particularly well with 15% of the vote (registered voters). Isère’s population growth and industrialization in that era was widely seen as being particularly rapid and regionally uneqal. It came mostly to the benefit of Sud Isère and the Grenoble region, and to a lesser extent the industrial centres of the Nord Isère in proximity to Lyon. It left behind declining rural regions lying between the two urban centres of attraction of Lyon-Vienne-Bourgoin and Grenoble.

The overall correlation between population change and Poujadist vote is weak but negative (as expected) at -0.26. The link between industrialization, as measured by employment in industry or transportation in 1951, and the Poujadist vote is more significant and negative (as expected) at -0.35.

Poujadism, born as anti-parliamentary movement, was perhaps ultimately unable to survive the contradiction between its aim and founding value (anti-parliamentarianism) and being a parliamentary actor. Its emergence as a last-straw reaction to industrialization and modernization which would only intensify in the 1960s precluded it from being anything more than a temporary feu de paille (flash in the pan) in the realm of French politics. The emergence of the Fifth Republic and the shift away from the parliamentary partitocratie killed off a lot of the movement’s anti-institutional and anti-system rhetoric. Gaullism would re-emerge as an attractive and viable political option a bit more than two years later. The only thing left of Poujadism, it seems, is the use of “Poujadist” as a blanket term for most populisms of that kind.

But despite it going down in history as a feu de paille, as a curiosity of history but ultimately a futile and quixotic single-issue movement, Poujadism has had a deeper impact on French politics and the far-right in France. Not only because Jean-Marie Le Pen was elected as a young UFF deputy for the Seine in 1956. The rhetoric behind Poujadism with the attacks on the corrupt political establishment, the big corporations, the foreign profiteers, aggressive nationalism and part of wider movement which appealed to those who felt ‘forgotten’ by the political elites and those who fell behind economically. What is pejoratively called the petite bourgeoisie, or more specifically the shopkeepers and merchants who formed the backbone of the UDCA, have remained one of the FN’s backbones though the FN has never been as closely identified to that social category as the Poujadists were and their influence on the modern FN is fading, though certainly present. To a good extent, the FN has won votes from voters who are neither part of the unionized working-class or the wealthier upper middle-classes, and who are at odds both with the traditional right in its old elitist Orleanist incarnations and with the left in its old traditional sense described, by Poujadists, as ‘anti-individualists’. I think the FN vote in places like rural and exurban Champagne, Bourgogne and Picardie are quite reflective of a rural, “forgotten” electorate which is not particularly well-off and gets put off by both the right and the left. Not working-class in the industrial sense, but of some small town working-class tradition. These particular types of people might not have voted Poujadist in 1956 (although some certainly did), but I feel that the rhetoric which appeals to them on the FN’s behalf is similar to the Poujadist rhetoric of 1956.

Pierre Poujade quickly broke with his young MP, and disavowed any links between his movement and the FN. Poujade was not a politician, he was far more of a corporatist unionist with a talent for oratory. But his movement had deep repercussions on the FN in terms of ideology and orientation. The Poujadist vote in 1956 was remarkable for its strength and its homogeneity across the country, but in the details the Poujadist vote is also remarkable for its composition’s heterogeneity. In almost each region, it seems as if the makeup of the vote was different and as if the impetus to vote for Pierre Poujade’s movement varied significantly from region to region: wine crisis here, population decline there, shopkeepers and merchants angers there, falling behind on industrialization here, structural rural poverty there. Despite its short life as a political movement and regardless of whether you have a positive or negative view of Poujade and his movement, Poujadism had a deep impact on the French far-right after 1945.

The face of France in 1951

In my past post, I looked at the changing face of the French left in terms of its social and geographical bases between the 1995 and 2007 elections. In this post, I shift to something completely different and something far removed from modern French politics, upon request of one reader.

The Fourth Republic, between 1946 and 1958, is usually associated with political instability and a political regime based on the institutional preeminence of the legislative branch at the expense of the executive. Unlike the Fifth Republic, whose structure of government as expressed by the Constitution of 1958 was plebiscited by over 80% of voters, the Fourth Republic was contested from its birth – its constitution had only been approved by 53% of voters. Charles de Gaulle, most significantly, opposed the Fourth Republic from the outset. Favouring a strong executive and a weaker legislature, he also criticized the ‘partitocracy’ of the system which placed party interests above national interests.

The political system of the Fourth Republic, at least until 1955, quickly stabilized by 1947 around three main parties which formed the Troisième Force (or Third Force). In May 1947, in the context of Cold War tensions and following a revolutionary strike wave notably in the Nord’s mining basin, Paul Ramadier excluded the Communist ministers from his cabinet, and the PCF would from then on remain shut out of cabinets until 1981. Following the collapse of the tripartisme (1945-1947) allying Communists, Socialists and Christian democrats, the new government coalition crystallized around the moderate parties of the centre: the Socialist (SFIO), Christian democrats (MRP), Radicals and ‘moderates’ (right-wingers). The MRP and SFIO in particular disagreed over issues such as private education, but to varying extents all these parties were attached to the parliamentary regime. Furthermore, less so in the SFIO and MRP’s case, but especially so in the case of the moderates and Radicals, they were predominantly partis de notables as opposed to partis de masse with a strong base of activists, reliant instead on its personalities and the effects of personality.

Charles de Gaulle had failed to spark a popular movement which would force the parties to call him back following his resignation in January 1946, and his discours de Bayeux had failed in its attempts to influence the debates which led to the drafting of the second constitutional draft and ultimately the Fourth Republic’s constitution in October 1946. In April 1947, seeking to get back into the political game, de Gaulle formed the Rally of the French People (RPF). Presented as a popular movement which was neither left-wing nor right-wing, the RPF was an anti-system, anti-communist and nationalist party. The RPF’s leadership was recruited from a wide horizon: old nationalists, Catholics, Radicals and left-wingers. While saying that the RPF is right-wing is certainly not wrong, especially in light of its electoral base, it can be set apart from the other two main centre-right parties of the era, the MRP and the moderates/CNIP. In contrast to the pro-European MRP, the RPF was more nationalistic and Eurosceptic. It placed great emphasis on defending the independence and greatness of France and opposed the European federalism of the MRP. And in contrast to the liberal moderates, the RPF was more weary of economic liberalism and promoted a more statist economic agenda and supported a third way between capitalism and socialism. The MRP and especially the moderates were the avatars of the Orleanist tradition: internationalist, more economically liberal (less so in the MRP’s case) and ‘elitist’ to an extent that they placed less emphasis on “the nation” or “the movement”. The RPF, on the other hand, were the heirs of the Bonapartist tradition: nationalist in that they defended the independence and greatness of France, wary of economic liberalism and more statist, and finally populist in an emphasis on concepts such as the “people”, the “nation” and “movements” (over “parties”).

The RPF had an immediate success in the October 1947 municipal elections in which they won 35% of the votes and conquered cities such as Paris (the presidency of the municipal council, the city not having an elected mayor until 1977), Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Rennes. As late as the 1949 cantonal elections (delayed by the government), the RPF obtained a second resounding success with 32% of the votes. But progressively between 1947 and the 1951 elections, the RPF’s star started to fade. Part of its failure can be laid on the hostility of the print media and the official boycott on the behalf of the state-controlled media. But in the fall of 1947, the Third Force government and its Socialist interior minister Jules Moch was particularly successful in its handling (repression) of the strike wave which had begun earlier that year. As the threat of communism began to fade as order was restored in France, the conservative milieus no longer saw the need for le recours à de Gaulle (resorting to de Gaulle). The situation of chaos, foreign disasters and of serious threats to the established order which had sparked the Gaullist return in May 1958 were just not present between 1947 and 1951 when the economy started stabilizing and recovering from the war and when the main threat to the state (the PCF) started to fade out slightly in its political power.

Yet, the RPF, just like the equally anti-system PCF (unlike the RPF, the PCF was not opposed to the institutions per se but to the political makeup of the government), represented a serious threat to the regime’s already shaky political stability. With over half of the votes between them, if the 1951 elections were held under the same proportional (highest average) method as in 1946, the PCF and RPF with perhaps over half of the seats would kill the regime’s political stability. The Third Force parties, hostile both to the PCF and the RPF, saw the need to toy with the electoral law as to prevent this doomsday scenario from occuring in 1951. The result was the loi des apparentements. Outside the Seine and Seine-et-Oise where highest average PR remained in use, the new system was based on highest remainders PR but with a big caveat. Party lists could “parent” themselves to another list, and if the sum total of all these ‘parented’ lists was over 50% of the votes cast, said lists would split the entirety of the seats amongst themselves. For example, even if in a constituency the RPF came first with 30% and the PCF won 15%, but the sum total of the allied Third Force parties was above 50%, all seats would go to the Third Force parties and deprive the RPF, despite polling 30%, of any seats.

The result was a success for the Third Force parties. With 25.9% and 21.7% respectively, the PCF and RPF became the two largest parties. Amongst themselves, they won 104 and 120 seats. The SFIO won 14.5% (it had won 17.9% in 1946) and 103 seats. The MRP, which had won 26% in 1946, was a victim of the RPF’s success and won only 12.5% and 96 seats. The moderates, however, with 14% did slightly better than in 1946 (13%) and won 98 seats. The Radicals and their allies in the RGR won 10%, down 2%, and 92 seats (76 Radicals). Overall, the anti-system forces weighed 47.6% of the votes but only 35.7% of the seats. The Third Force held its majority with some 62% for all parties which traditionally made up the Third Force. However, the balance of power shifted to the right. For that reason and another question, the SFIO was excluded from all cabinets formed in this legislature. It was the MRP, moderates and Radicals who would form the bases of governments in this legislature.

Eventually, the RPF would collapse during the course of the legislature. The counter-performance of the party in the 1951 elections, in which it had hoped to win 200 seats, was a serious hit. Then the authoritarian leadership of the party by de Gaulle who refused any contacts with the other parties led to a series of splits, the first in 1952 when 27 RPF deputies voted in favour of Antoine Pinay. As the General said, a lot of the RPF deputies abandoned ship “to go to the soup”. By 1956, the trumpets of the anti-system crusade were taken up by the far-right Poujadist movement.

Perhaps 1951 does not offer us a “classic” view of the MRP, PCF, SFIO and Radicals at their strongest points (1946), but it is still interesting with the factor of the RPF and the first emergence of “electoral Gaullism”. Before going any further, it is important to point out that while these were proportional elections (albeit vandalized), in some departments, particularly ones with few seats, the results might not be reflective of the ‘real’ political sentiment of the region. The role of other factors such as local candidates, party lists and alliances, strong local party grassroots and so forth all fudge the picture a bit. But in departments with lots of seats, the political competition was along the classical lines of political parties rather than local candidates and party alliances. Sometimes, as a result of such party alliances, it is difficult to classify party lists in one department under either one of the major categories: there were a few RPF-CNIP coalitions, lots of MRP-CNIP coalitions and at least one common left-wing slate with the PCF (apparently) in Lozère. I do not have primary source results, but in some cases I wouldn’t be surprised if a party was split between two lists… Therefore, on party vote maps, there is due to be some difference on how one list is shown.

The first basic map is that of the overall results, by lists, by department. These are maps replicated from a scanned copy of an old book which was sent to me by email.

The second map, from which we can develop an analysis, shows results by list by canton. This map was established using my metropolitan cantonal base map by a friend mine who was kind enough to allow me to use his monumental creations on this website. The colour schemes might be a little difficult to read, especially to differentiate between the PCF and SFIO, but it is a beautiful patchwork of colours and tells more than the random mish-mash of colours would otherwise indicate.

La France communiste

The most basic striking pattern on this map – and in fact of all French election maps starting after the end of the war until at least the realignments of the 1980s – is the pattern of left wing support, in this case PCF support, forming a sort of C or G shape. The C starts around Fréjus or Nice, circles around the Riviera to the Spanish border and circles upwards through the Tarn, Gers, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Limousin (especially Haute-Vienne), Berry and finishes in the Bourbonnais and Nivernais. In some cases, it extended into a G shape with a tail reaching upwards from Aix and Toulon to include the lower Prealps, the Diois, Baronnies (in the Drôme) and often Isère. The C or G left enclosed the devoutly Catholic plateaus of the southern Massif Central in the Aveyron, Cantal and Lozère.

The main common point between the diverse regions included in this C are their anti-clericalism. This is 1951, when religious practice was still the most important determinant of voting behaviour and the variable which trumped all other variables. The PCF had a clear correlation with religious practice: a clear negative correlation as opposed to the MRP’s strong positive correlation. Basically no Communist voter in 1951 went to church weekly and only a handful could be seen as even remotely church-going. With a few major exceptions (the so-called écharpe bleue), Provence, the old southwest, Limousin, Berry and the Bourbonnais were all some of the most anti-clerical or non-religious areas in France. These are, by consequence in a way, where the tradition of left-republicanism was best implanted and where the social structure was the most “democratic” because of the quasi-null influence of the clergy.

There are a handful of small, isolated industrial centres all along this left-wing C/G, and in fact those small industrial centres were the PCF’s strongholds. You found old mining (tin if I remember correctly) in the Var’s backcountry, the mining basin of the Cévennes around Alès, Sète’s harbour, textiles in Lavelanet, the mining basin of Carmaux, the mining basin of Decazeville, the industrial valleys of Aurillac, the mining basin of the Brivadois, glove-makers in Saint-Junien, the mines of Commentry, the light industry of Montluçon, ceramics and machinery in Vierzon and the mining basin of La Machine/Decize. There were industrial centres of varying size in the Ardèche (Le Cheylard etc), Isère (both mining basins such as La Mure, Grenoble’s urban working-class hinterland, metallurgy in the Vallée du Grésivaudan, textile in Nord-Isère), Loire and Rhône.

But in fact the most striking aspect of the PCF’s evolution between the interwar era (1936) and the post-war years (1946) is its conquest of rural France. In 1936, with the exception of the Lot-et-Garonne (caused by local circumstances and leadership), the PCF was an exclusively urban party with its strongholds in the urbanized working-class regions of France such as the Nord or the Seine department. After the war, the PCF expanded to become a truly national parties with the implantation of the party in formerly Socialist rural areas in the Berry, Bourbonnais, Limousin, Languedoc and Provence. In some cases, some of these rural strongholds would become even more solid than some of the urban strongholds. The PCF’s role in the resistance during the War played an important role, and there is a pretty strong correlation between Communist-voting rural areas and zones of heavy FTP (the PCF’s resistance grouping) activity during the War. This is especially true in the Trégor and Haute-Cornouaille in Brittany, the ‘Red Belt’ of an otherwise right-wing stronghold.

The specific nature of these Communist-voting rural areas, which make up the bulk of the left-wing C/G on the map, are pretty different from one another. They all tend to have anti-clericalism in common, but the local socio-economic realities differed. In the Var, the old tradition of the Var rouge, an anti-clerical and strongly left-republican tradition based in the patchwork of ouvriers, small employees and small shopkeepers in the Provencal backcountry was still vibrant. Similar traditions extended into Provence, but also the old republican strongholds of the Diois and Baronnies (Drôme) and the Protestant locales of the Ardèche. In the Hérault (and parts of the rest of Languedoc, notably the Gard), a similarly militant left-republican tradition was strongly implanted, but this time in the context of a community of poor, small (often very small) wine producers faced with a string of economic disadvantages and with a militant tradition exemplified by the 1907 wine producers’ revolt in the Languedoc. Limousin has a long tradition of left-republicanism and socialism, the result of small landholders, anti-clericalism and the region’s masons who worked in Paris and brought back an early tradition of socialism. During the War, FTP activity was quite heavy in the region.

However, from the Dordogne to the Bourbonnais, the map of rural communism shows a strong correlation with the map of sharecropping (métayage). This is especially true in the Allier, which had 30% of land under sharecropping in 1942. The Cher (20%), Indre (26%), Vienne (29%), Haute-Vienne (38%), Charente (25%), Dordogne (20%), Lot-et-Garonne (38%), Gers (23%), Haute-Garonne (32%) and Tarn (28%) all had high incidences of sharecropping and all had substantial communist votes. However, the Landes (58% under sharecropping) has never denoted itself by a substantial Communist vote, which means that perhaps the sharecropping explanation isn’t all-encompassing…

The other major bloc of Communist strength in this period was northern France, a region taking in the Parisian basin and besides that parts of the Seine-Maritime, Picardy and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The Seine and Seine-et-Oise with the mythical ceinture rouge was the original base of PCF support in France. Though 1936 was perhaps the peak of the PCF’s strength in the Parisian basin, the 1950s were still part of the PCF’s heyday. The PCF vote was not limited, like it is today, to a handful of well-maintained strongholds in decrepit suburbs, but was rather universally spread throughout most of the region excepting the then-rural outer reaches and the old bourgeois heartlands of western Paris. Outside the Parisian basin, similar heavy concentrations of low-income working-class voters could be seen in Le Havre, the Seine industrial valley south of Rouen, Dieppe, Amiens, Calais, Dunkerque, Lille (alongside Roubaix, Tourcoing, Armentières, Seclin, Haubourdin), Douai, Cambrai, Maubeuge, the mining basin of the Nord and Charleville-Mézières. Industry was also concentrated into smaller centres such as Creil, Clermont, Ault, Boves, Amiens, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Saint-Quentin and Soissons.

The post-war era was the heyday of the left with the working-class. Revolutionary aspirations were not some distant pipe dreams. Being an ouvrier was a vision of society organized around the ideas of the class struggle, and being an ouvrier was regarded as being the industrial brass and steel of the country, not an archaic anachronism as it is today. The left represented, for these people (but they must not be taken as one – 3 in 10 did not vote for the left!) This was the génération héroique of workers, witnesses to the social struggles of 1936, the Matignon Accords, the Resistance and the victory of 1945. In some cases, especially in the Parisian hinterland, these voters had a solid class culture. The PCF was more than a party you voted for out of spite, it was the political expression of something. The trade union (often the then-communist CGT) was just as important.

The rural element is not the dominant element in northern France, which is far more marked for its industrial activity. But in terms of the two most important factors in voting patterns in rural France in 1951, this region was anti-clerical (with exceptions such as Flanders) and in terms of land exploitation the dominant form was neither sharecropping nor direct exploitation by the owner (which often indicates smallholders), but rather fermage where a wealthy landowner owning lots of land (often a bourgeois living in an urban setting) leased parts of his land to a farmer who paid the landowner a set lease. As André Siegfried pointed out in his analysis of the Caux and Vexin, where fermage was dominant, the farmer in practice took the role of the powerful rural-based landowner with a capitalist interest in wealth rather than land ownership. In turn, he often employed a large number of agricultural labourers. But in political terms, unlike the noble landowner (the French caciques!) of the Anjou, the political ascendancy of the farmer was quasi-null. Gone was the patriarchal linkage between noble and his working hands, replaced instead by a tenuous link between two individuals who did not know each other closely. Siegfried had again proved prophetic in his predictions when he said that a day would come where socialism could develop in these environments!

Ouvriers agricoles (agricultural labourers) are important throughout Picardy and parts of the Pas-de-Calais, but it is doubtful whether this was extremely relevant even in 1951. The furthest back I have census data for, 1968, indicates that the dominant social grouping throughout Picardy and especially places like the Aisne or Oise were ouvriers (manual workers). A category which, it is true, includes agricultural labourers, but which mostly includes manual skilled and unskilled workers in industry. The correlation between a high proportion of ouvriers and a high PCF vote is pretty positive in this era, while those cantons which were marked by a higher percentage of either employees or agriculteurs exploitants (those, basically, who directly exploit the land) were far less likely to vote PCF. There were quite a lot of small industrial islands sparkled throughout the Oise, Somme and the Pays de Caux. It is perhaps there where we must find the sources of PCF support outside the core urban centres.

Looking closer at the above map, we can clearly see outlined the mining basin of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais, forming some sort of crescent moon from Auchel (Pas-de-Calais) to the Belgian border (Nord). The mining basin, a revolutionary hotbed in places, had been the birthplace of French socialism in the 1880s (with Jules Guesde’s Marxist POF) and in the 1920s it had been one of the earliest bases of the PCF. To this day, parts of the mining basin retain their Communist orientations. While much less visible on this map, it is important to differentiate the mining basin in the Nord (Douai, Valenciennes, Saint-Amand) from the mining basin in the Pas-de-Calais (Hénin, Lens, Liévin, Béthune). The former is the revolutionary hotbed and where Guesde’s POF found some of its strongest support in all of France. It has been a PCF stronghold since the 1920s. However, the Pas-de-Calais’ mining basin has been far more moderate (although we should not overstate it). Reformist independent socialism was strong in the Pas-de-Calais at the turn of the century, and in some cases for some miners, reformist socialist sufficed. By consequence, and it is very clear today, the Socialists have been stronger. Though the PCF’s influence must not be understated, far from it.

The Right-Wing France or La France catholique

The MRP, the post-war Christian democratic party, represented the first real experiment (ignoring the minor interwar PDP) at a Catholic mass party which accepted democracy and the “ideals of the Revolution”. France has never had a Catholic Party similar to Germany’s Zentrum, Belgium’s CVP or the Netherland’s KVP. The post-war MRP was the closest France came to having a Catholic mass party, but even then it was not perfect. Catholicism in France – Catholicism in this French context referring not to the bulk of officially Catholic France (90% of the country) but rather those for whom religion was important and who practiced their faith – had been associated since the Revolution with reactionary politics and was presented as the enemy of the Revolution, the republic, democracy, progress and the Republican values. Perhaps some of these associations were false, and by the 1950s it could certainly not be said that Catholicism was the enemy of democracy or of the republic. But in other cases it is true, Catholicism bred conservatism. Catholic milieus were by definition conservative in their outlook.

The MRP always needed to deal with the ambiguity between a right-wing electorate, who had abandoned discredited interwar right-wingers, and a more left-wing leadership and style of governance. It has been said that the MRP was a centrist party, with right-wing voters and who governed with the left. It is not far from the truth, especially in 1951. The MRP was never really able to surmount this ambiguity between a conservative base and more social Christian leadership. After its heyday in 1945 and 1946, benefiting from a perfect storm: no Gaullist movement, a strong legitimacy as a party of the resistance, a discredited right and a stature as the largest opponent of the PCF following the May 1946 referendum; the MRP declined, victim of Gaullism and the effects on its right-wing base of governing in a centre-left manner.

In 1946, the MRP had been very successful in its ability to conquer the quasi-entirety of la France catholique. Certainly its overall map in 1951 remains obviously tied to the map of Catholic France with Brittany, the inner west, Lower Normandy, the Basque Country, the southern Massif Central, Savoy, Jura, Alsace-Moselle and Flanders. But a look at the above map by canton shows a weakened MRP. Indeed, we find some solid MRP bases at the cantonal level only in Morbihan, Mayenne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Tarn, Loire (Georges Bidault), Haute-Savoie, Jura and Bas-Rhin. Bases which owe more, in this case, to local candidates (for example, in the Tarn, the top candidate was a former PDP deputy in office since 1919) and a strong local implantation (the MRP was very powerful, institutionally, in Alsace).

The moderates (CNIP) have oft been referred to in literature as la droite laïque as opposed to the MRP as la droite catholique. Superficially this may be true, and some of the CNIP’s bases in the Champagne (Aube, Côte-d’Or, Yonne) or Centre (Eure-et-Loir) are reflective of this orientation. In reality, however, the differences between the “two rights” were quite abated. If the moderates had indeed been the party of the secular right, then surely they wouldn’t have won a landslide in Vendée, Loire-Atlantique, Lozère, Aveyron, Cantal, Haute-Loire or the Ardèche. Why, then, did they win a landslide there?

The moderates being the party of notables by excellence, personality unsurprisingly trumped party ideology (if they had any) hugely. In 1951, the “schools question” (to use a Canadian term!) was a major political issue in France. The debate was about extending state funding to private education (also called l’école libre), which were in practice religious (Catholic) schools. The PCF, SFIO and Radicals opposed any such funding, while the right defended the liberté d’éducation. In September 1951, the MRP-SFIO coalition finally collapsed to the RPF’s delight on the educational question when the right associated to pass the Barangé law which extended special state funding for both public and private schools at the primary level.

On the ground, the defense of the “freedom of education” was not just the preserve of the MRP, it was also defended by most of the RPF and also a lot of moderates. In the aforementioned ‘Catholic-CNIP’ departments, the top moderate figure often clearly and unambiguously defended the ‘freedom of education’. This was the case in the Ardèche, where the clergy had never solidly backed the MRP, but also the Haute-Loire, Lozère, Aveyron or Loire-Atlantique. To use the example of the Vendée, where the moderates did very well in 1951, the top candidate of the CNIP list (in fact a common CNIP-RPF list) was Armand de Baudry d’Asson. Baudry d’Asson had been one of the three co-sponsors of the Barangé law. He was also the grandson of a monarchist deputy for Les Sables until 1914. Baudry d’Asson is something of a stereotype for the Vendéen noble: Chouan ancestors, monarchist until the end and deeply conservative. In the conservative departments of the inner west or the southern Massif Central, the moderates and their visceral anti-communism combined with their positions on education made them a better fit, in fact, for the rural right-wing voter than the MRP could be.

In the Hautes-Alpes, which returned only two members, the moderate’s landslide is the result of a weird broad list allying some socialists, Christian democrats and moderates and led by Finance Minister Maurice Petsche, who died later that year.

Gaullist France

The electoral geography of Gaullism – or rather of Charles de Gaulle as an individual – has always been a unique phenomenon. It may be a right-wing movement, but its map has never perfectly coincided with the traditional geographic distribution of the French right. The map below shows the distribution of the RPF’s vote in 1951 by the legislative constituencies used in 1936. The map also treats CNIP-RPF (or RPF-CNIP) lists and other heterogeneous lists as RPF lists, which might fudge matters a bit and explain the differences between this map and the map by department above (which apparently treats those weird lists differently).

The most important aspect of the electoral geography of Gaullism in its traditional phase (which is basically 1951 and 1958 until 1968) is the similarities between the electoral map of Gaullism and the map of occupied France in 1941. Indeed, the bulk of Gaullist support is concentrated in what was the northern zone – France occupied by Nazi Germany (annexed in the case of Alsace-Moselle). 1951 does not yet allow for this trend to be seen perfectly, but by the 1958 and 1962 referendums or the 1965 runoff we clearly see Gaullism in full strength in occupied France but much weaker in the zone libre (administered directly by Vichy until November 1942). But already by this first map of electoral Gaullism, there is a marked difference between the old zones of occupation. The RPF’s strength follows pretty closely the demarcation line, from the Basque border at Hendaye, along the Atlantic seaboard, into Brittany, and then englobing the bulk of northern and northeastern France. The demarcation line is particularly visible in the Charente, with a weak RPF showing in the Confolentais which was on the Vichy side of the line; in the Indre, which was entirely in Vichy France; Cher, with the RPF’s strongest showings concentrated in the occupied zone; Saône-et-Loire, with the RPF performing poorly in the Bresse and Mâconais which were in Vichy France.

The explanation is not that “the south were collabos”, which is obviously false. Some of the heaviest resistance in the maquis happened in the south. However, northern France suffered the traumas of German occupation as early as 1941, while southern France only came under direct German control after November 1942. It is thus likely that the occupied zone responded with more emotion and remembered with more emotions the appel du 18 juin. Furthermore, Charles de Gaulle was particularly involved in the liberation of the old occupied zone, while his personal role in the liberation of Provence and southern France was far less important. Charles de Gaulle’s northern origins (Lille) likely play a small role, but it could only account for a very small part of the explanation.

The RPF and Gaullism would always have a strong base in the Catholic regions of western France and Alsace-Lorraine. The RPF was perhaps not a traditional right-wing party, but especially in these regions where the bulk of the RPF’s candidates engaged themselves in the support of private schools, the RPF was in perfect symmetry with the Catholic conservatism of the region. Part of the Gaullist movement’s strength in Alsace and Lorraine can be laid down on a long history of nationalism and patriotism in the region, which would logically be strong supporters of Gaullism. But in the Catholic regions of western France, the symmetry between the MRP and the Gaullist electorate is pretty visible. It was said that all of the major parliamentary parties, the MRP was the one which was closest to de Gaulle and the one which was the most likely to share a conception of power and state similar to Gaullism. In another sense, the MRP also had a strong ‘resistance’ element which was more Gaullist than traditionally Christian democratic. That this electorate voted RPF in 1951 and likely voted for the Gaullists after 1958 is not a surprise, far from it.

In the Finistère, the RPF performed particularly strongly in the Pays Léonard (north of Brest), the most devoutly Catholic region of the department, but also a particularly unique Catholic region in the Catholic west because its clerical bases were not laid on an alliance of “church and castle” as in Anjou or Vendée, but rather on what can be styled a “theocratic democracy”. But such interesting differences can’t explain everything.  Finistère contributed particularly heavily to the Resistance. Interestingly, however, Ouessant didn’t vote RPF…

The strong showings in Vendée on this map is pretty artificial, because this map counts Armand de Baudry d’Asson’s CNIP-RPF list as a RPF list and his list was far more a traditional conservative list than a purely Gaullist list. A similar comment could be made about Eure-et-Loir, where the RPF supported two incumbent moderates and whose list did particularly well. In the Loire-Atlantique, the RPF list had a strong Gaullist component (Olivier de Sesmaisons, incumbent moderate-turned-RPF deputy) but was also allied with the traditional right – two of the list’s four elected members sat with the traditional right-wing groups. In the Maine-et-Loire, the RPF list was led by Victor Chatenay, the mayor of Angers between 1947 and 1959, and perhaps explains the RPF’s particularly strong showing. In Moselle, the RPF list was led by Raymond Mondon, the mayor of Metz between 1947 and 1970. In the Oise, finally, the RPF list was led by Jean Legendre, incumbent moderate deputy and mayor of Compiègne. His success, like that of quite a few other RPF lists, is due in good part to his personal appeal than any true Gaullist vote reservoir.

1951 is an important election in the course of French electoral history. It marked the emergence of the first anti-system movement under the Fourth Republic, and saw the first outing of electoral Gaullism – laying the bases for the future map of the Gaullist movement in its first phase.

 

The changing face of the French left (1995-2007)

In the 1995 presidential election, PS candidate Lionel Jospin won 47.36% of the vote in the runoff. In the 2007 presidential election, PS candidate Ségolène Royal won 46.94% of the vote in the runoff. A difference of barely 0.42% between the two results, even if the two elections were a full twelve years apart. The similarity of the results won by the left’s candidate in both runoffs, twelve years apart, makes these two elections particularly interesting for comparison. 2007 is the most recent presidential election, and presidential elections are the best starting points for comparisons because they are the “real elections” where people vote on issues and candidates, not on their usual hatred of the incumbent government. 1995 is, before 2007, the last election in which the runoff was “normal” – that is, a regular right-left contest.

Given that the two candidates in 1995 and 2007 won basically the same percentage nationally, surely their two maps are very similar? Things couldn’t be more different. Look at a basic map of the 1995 and 2007 runoffs and it is shocking how different the maps are considering the national picture is one of similarity.

As the 2012 election approaches, I figured it would be interesting to look at the changing face of the French left in terms of its electoral clientele and the type of voter it has lost in twelve years and the type of voter it has gained in that period. The map below compares the runoff performance of Jospin and Royal by constituency. A constituency shaded in red indicates that it voted more heavily for Royal than Jospin, of course a deeper shade of red indicates that Royal performed far better than Jospin while a lighter shade of red indicates that Royal outperformed Jospin marginally. Conversely, a constituency shaded in blue indicates that it voted for heavily for Jospin than Royal, and again a deeper shade of blue indicates that Jospin did far better than Royal had done. Because overall Jospin did some 0.38% better than Royal (in metropolitan France), the constituencies which are shaded in light blue (cyan) indicate that while Jospin did better than Royal, the margin between his performance in 1995 and her performance in 2007 was smaller than -0.38% – meaning that overall that constituency did not swing towards Royal but trended (swing below national average) towards Royal.

Note: this article uses exit poll data from 1988, 1995, 2002 and 2007 from Ipsos – because they’re the most easily accessible, and because they tend to be quite accurate pollsters. For the 2010 regional elections, data from OpinionWay is used.

The two most shocking aspects of this map are its close correlation with the traditional map of the FN vote and its concentration east of the Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan axis and, on the other hand, the emergence of three major red blocks: Île-de-France and the Parisian basin; the Massif Central and Limousin in the centre; and Brittany, Maine, Anjou and Poitou in the west (Béarn and the Basque County are a smaller but just as significant fourth block of red). I think the first comment about the shockingly close correlation of the map of the left’s decline since 1995 with that of the FN strength east of the old Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan axis is the most important one and the one which merits the most explanations.

The regions east of the Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan axis are the most industrialized areas of France. This is, of course, a pretty reductionist analysis but, in general, the areas west of that axis tend to be less economically marked by heavy industry and more marked, at least historically by agriculture and today by tertiary service-oriented industries. The regions east of the axis certainly include some very rural areas, but most of the large industrial centres of France are here: the coal mines of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the petrochemical industry around Le Havre, the working-class hinterland around Rouen and the Seine valley, the coal mines of the Lorrain basin, the steelworks of upper Lorraine, the large petrochemical and shipping installations outside Marseille or the isolated cités cheminotes along the Paris-Lyon railway. These are the most industrial areas, and by consequence the most working-class areas.

Once upon a time, the French left – like most of the European left – was the uncontested party of the working-class and dominated the working-class vote with some 70% of the vote. The tough reality of power for the left, among other factors, has weakened its hold on the working-class vote. From the highs of the post-war years (estimated at 70%), the left has seen its support dwindle pretty drastically with working-class voters (ouvriers) to the point where their voting is no longer markedly different with that of the wider electorate, or only marginally biased in the left’s favour by less than 5%. The main benefactor of the slow decline of the left’s support amongst workers was the FN, whose emergence as a potent political actor beginning in 1983 (Dreux by-election) corresponds to the electorate’s rebuke of the left in the midst of the early-1980s recession. While many serious analyses have indicated that the FN actually gained more amongst the 3 in ten workers who were traditionally right-wing than amongst historically Communist or left-wing working-class voters, the FN still drew at least some of its new support in the mid-1980s from working-class voters who had voted loyally for the PS or PCF in the post-war era.

As time went on, the left’s decripitude with the ouvriers was progressively accentuated. Conversely, while the FN’s presidential vote was stable at 15-16% between 1988 and 2002, there was a pretty dramatic realignment of forces within the FN electorate: the FN progressively lost strength with shopkeepers and the lower middle-classes while gaining quite dramatically with ouvriers. The trend was confirmed in 1995: in the first round, Jospin won 20% of ouvriers against 27% for Jean-Marie Le Pen, 17% for Robert Hue (PCF) and 14% for Chirac. In 1988, Mitterrand had received the support of 40% of ouvriers against 21% for Le Pen, 15% for Lajoinie (PCF) and a paltry 9% for Chirac. Yet, there exists the phenomenon of gaucho-lepenisme – traditionally left-wing voters who vote for Le Pen in the first round but then return to their left-wing roots in the runoff against the traditional right (23% of Le Pen’s first round voters in 1995 voted for Jospin in the runoff). Jospin still won 65% of ouvriers against 35% for Chirac, and a look at his results by constituency or cantons confirms that. The left-wing slant of the vote ouvrier had declined, but it remained, with teachers (67% Jospin) the most solidly left-wing constituency.

The left in power between 1997 and 2002 certainly did not strengthen the left with its old core electorate. In 2002, Jospin won only 15% of ouvriers in that fateful election which shook the left to its core. Le Pen polled 30% with those voters, making them by far his best socio-professional category.

In 2007, Le Pen’s strength with these voters was weakened, though with 23% he still narrowly won them over Royal (21%) and Sarkozy (21%). A word could be said about François Bayrou’s success (16%, up from 2% in 2002) with these same voters, proof that despite his Christian democratic map, Bayrou’s anti-system candidacy did have an impact on this traditionally anti-system electorate (nearly 80% against the EU constitution in 2005). Really, in 2007 the new factor was Sarkozy’s vitality with these voters who had historically been the most “anti-right wing” voting bloc there could be. Nicolas Sarkozy’s gains with Le Pen’s 2002 voters – some 38% of those who had chosen Le Pen on April 21, 2002 chose Sarkozy by the first round – had actually not been most pronounced with those working-class Le Pen voters but rather with the more professional and traditionally conservative portion of Le Pen’s former electorate (those in PACA, the southwest or Alsace). Le Pen’s resistance had been strongest with working-class voters and especially exurban or rurban lower middle-class voters. Nicolas Sarkozy as the candidate of the working-class might have surprised in 2002, when Sarkozy was considered too liberal (in the French sense). He was still a typical balladurien, with a more liberal, internationalist and elitist approach rather than the more nationalist, populist and statist chiraquien style which had prevailed in 1995. But Sarkozy is a wily politician and he knows how to tailor his message to the electorate. In 2007, the liberal Budget Minister of Balladur was replaced by the populistic-nationalistic Interior Minister who struck a chord with a poorer, less educated and more working-class electorate with the themes of controlled immigration, national identity, meritocracy and la France qui se lève tôt (the France which wakes up early). Regardless of what one personal opinion is of Sarkozy and the avered results of this rhetoric, those themes worked for Sarkozy and his strong showing with ouvriers by the first round confirms that. In the runoff, while Royal still won ouvriers with 54% against 46% for Sarkozy, Sarkozy’s showing with this core left-wing electorate had been 11% superior to Chirac’s showing in 1995.

A look at the map confirms what the exit polls read. Some of the right’s heaviest gains between 1995 and 2007 came in traditionally left-leaning (or even more mixed) working-class regions. Sarkozy did about 9% better than Chirac in the core constituencies of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais coal basin. In other constituencies, the same results: +6.9% in Longwy, +8.5% in Rombas, +7.6% in Forbach, +13.9% in Cernay, +8.2% in Montbéliard, +8.6% in Marignane, +7.4% in Istres, +7% in northeastern Marseille, +7.9% in Gonfreville-L’Orcher, +4-5% in Roubaix and Wattrelos or +6.3% in Tourcoing. In other industrial or heavily working-class departments of the north, such as the Oise, Somme, Ardennes and Aisne the right’s gains were just as equally impressive. The bluest areas on the above maps, at least in the east of the country, correlate strongly with a map of ouvriers. Gains were less pronounced, even in the east, in rural areas which are not as marked by a strong presence of ouvriers.

The other area which has shifted strongly to the right are those coastal Mediterranean regions or Provencal back country which have, in recent years, seen major demographic changes, most notably the influx of conservative retirees replacing more left-leaning locals, oftentimes working-class in background. These communities along the Mediterranean riviera and the Provencal back country also include other categories where the left has lost steam, somewhat, since 1995: artisans, shopkeepers and small business owners or employees. In these areas, Sarkozy scored other impressive gains: +5% in Narbonne, +6.8% in Sète, +7.3% in Nimes-2/Vauvert/Saint-Gilles, +7% in Orange and Carpentras, +6% in Brignoles.

The blue regions, which have swung to the right between 1995 and 2007, correlate strongly with an FN map. Not only east of the Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan axis, which is the reductionist view of the FN’s map, but also in other FN strongholds, notably the Garonne river valley for example and its small business owners/artisans and pieds-noirs. 

In contrast, the northwestern half of the country sticks out for its sharp trend to the left. One of the major themes in French electoral geography since the turn of the century has been the sharp shift to the left in regions such as Brittany, the Pays-de-la-Loire, Lower Normandy and Poitou-Charentes. In 1965 and 1974, some of these regions – especially Brittany and the Pays de la Loire were some of the most markedly right-wing regions with the left struggling to even break 30% in some of the deepest rural constituencies of Brittany or the inner west. There are many explanations to this shift. The most important one, in my eyes, is the declining importance of religiosity as a variable. The inner west and Brittany, alongside the southern Massif Central and Alsace, were and remain the most Catholic regions of the country (Catholic being the code word for ‘clerical’ or ‘religious’ as opposed to ‘anti-clerical’). As the left moderated over the course of the post-war era, as the boogeyman of the left being godless communists turned out wrong and as the society moved from a rural society to a urban society; the left gained in strength (the background of local grassroots activism by Christian left organizations such as the JAC or JOC also played a key role). The declining force of the right, compared to 1965 or 1974, in the inner west and Brittany was visible – though not in an extremely pronounced fashion – by the late 1980s and 1995. This trend to the left, like the working-class’ trend away from the left, only intensified between 1995 and 2007. In 2004, the left’s victory in the local elections in Brittany and the Pays-de-la-Loire was if not a shock a groundbreaking change. The other major factor in this trend was urbanization, which I touched on in my previous point. From agricultural regions, the inner west and especially Brittany have transformed into pretty urbanized modern societies. Urban and suburban growth between the 1999 and 2008 censuses was extremely pronounced in the periphery of the region’s large urban cores: Rennes, Nantes, Angers, Brest, Caen, Niort, Poitiers, Vannes, Saint-Brieuc, Le Mans and even La-Roche-sur-Yon. Those who make these regions booming are not old retirees like in the south, but rather middle-aged families who are averagely well-off, work in mid-level jobs (typically) in tertiary industries in the large urban centre.

Although some regions such as Cholet, the Vendéean bocage, eastern Ille-et-Vilaine and the Vannetais gallo were hotbeds of royalism and chouannerie up until the turn of the last century, Catholic regions in France are countries of moderate political orientation: strongly pro-European and generally more progressive on issues such as social policy or immigration. These are the strongholds of the centre, and François Bayrou had done very well in the first round in 2007. When the French right under Giscard or Chirac represented the Orleanist view of the right, these regions felt more at home. But these regions did not necessarily feel right at home in Sarkozy’s Bonapartist view of the right and the more right-wing populist policies of his government and before that his more controversial policy proposals on national identity alienated the more moderate centrist voters who had in the past felt comfortable with Chirac (in his later more moderate version).

Some of the left’s biggest gains came in areas which were traditionally rural and Catholic, but affected by suburbanization in recent years. The numbers on the above map speak for themselves: +8% in Landerneau (Albert de Mun’s old constituency in the 1900s), +5.4% in the Mer d’Iroise region of Léon, +4.5% in Ploërmel, +5.1% in Vitré, +4% in Redon, +3.5% on average in the greater Rennes, +5.3% in Nantes’ wine country, +3.7% in Ancenis, +6% in Angers-Ouest, +4.2% in Avranches and perhaps most shockingly +10.1% in Mortagne/Montaigu – Philippe de Villiers’ heartland and the real, deep ultra-conservative core of the bocage.

In the Deux-Sèvres, which has shifted left on its own as well, the left’s showing in 2007 was perhaps inflated by a strong favourite-daughter effect for Ségolène Royal. She outperformed Jospin by 6 to 8% in her department’s four constituencies, but interestingly the regions where she outran Jospin the most were the northern constituencies of Thouars and Parthenay (+8% and +7.6%) which cover the more right-wing and Vendéean-style north of the department rather than her own constituency (Saint-Maixent, +6.2%) which is more naturally left-leaning.

The constituencies in the west where the swing towards the left was most pronounced were the ones which were most right-wing. Those who had been the lone holdouts of the left when the right was dominant swung, but not with such impressive margins. The Côtes-d’Armor, northwestern Morbihan, Saint-Nazaire, Fontenay-le-Comte or Cherbourg – all older areas of significant left-wing strength – had smaller swings. In the Maine-et-Loire and the Sarthe, it is even more amusing. In the Maine-et-Loire, the old chouan Choletais had the biggest swing to the left while the Baugeois, historically left-wing, swung to the right. In the Sarthe, the swing towards the right was strongest in the east of the department (Saint-Calais) – historically the department’s left-wing region.

The same effect of declining religious practice and alienation with Sarkozy’s populist style can be seen in other Catholic regions: Lozère and the southern Massif Central and especially the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Voters in François Bayrou’s home department swung particularly heavily towards the left, with the most pronounced swings in Bayrou’s Bearnese highlands east of Pau and the Basque Country (+10.5% for the left in Oloron). But certainly not the same story in Alsace, a region where Royal did extremely poorly in – winning only one commune in the whole region! Jospin had done fairly well in Alsace in 1995, which is not as homogeneous in its political orientation as one might be led to believe. More influenced by Muslim immigration – particularly heavy in Mulhouse and Strasbourg – rural voters in Alsace, Catholic and Protestant, have been more tempted by the FN and the Sarkozy-style UMP than voters in the inner west or southern Massif Central.

There is a huge, solidly red, blob of red right smack in the middle of the map in the Limousin and Massif Central. This is the extended domain of the Chiraquie, Jacques Chirac’s particularly strong electoral base outpouring from his fiefdom in Corrèze. Chirac had a strong favourite-son vote in his constituency but even beyond his department into surrounding departments, and his favourite-son vote tended to break old partisan boundaries: his constituency was the most right-wing in Corrèze on its own but the department and the Limousin is traditionally a base for the left. With Chirac gone, the explosion of his core of support was inevitable and perhaps all the more impressive in its form because of the antipathy between Chirac and Sarkozy, apparently shared by Chirac’s favourite-son electorate. All major candidates besides Sarkozy and even Le Pen did better or as well than in 2002 in the Chiraquie. In the runoff, Royal narrowly won Chirac’s constituency and registered a huge 16.2% swing towards the left. The left gained 15% in Tulle and 12% in Brive. Beyond there, in the Catholic plateaus of the Cantal, Lozère and Aveyron, a dispersion of the Chirac vote and the right’s difficulty with Christian democratic voters mixed to create major swings towards the left: +9.5% in Saint-Flour, +5.8% in Millau and Rodez, +5.8% in eastern Lozère and +5.5% in western Lozère. Some other pretty sharp trends in the Creuse (+8.3% in Aubusson), the Puy-de-Dôme (+8.3% in the Giscard constituency, +5% in Issoire and Riom) and Dordogne (+5% in the Périgord Nord).

The final significant shift towards the left between 1995 and 2007 was that in urban cores. France often talks about Americanization, and regardless of whether it is true in practice, there is a clear Americanization of voting patterns in Europe which is a bit unlike any other EU country. Just as the ouvriers have shifted away from the left towards the FN or the right, the white working-class in America has shifted away from the Democrats towards the GOP. Similarly, just as more liberal affluent suburban or urban voters in America break from the GOP and prefer the Democrats in recent years, similar types of voters have shifted towards the left in France in recent years. The evolution of an urban, young-ish, well educated, generally affluent and professional electorate (the cadres intermédiaires and professions libérales/cadres supérieurs) towards the left is a reversed carbon-copy of the evolution of an older, less educated, poorer and blue-collar electorate away from the left. Traditionally, up until the 1980s and mid-1990s, the CSP+ electorate leaned pretty sharply towards the left. In 1995, Chirac won 65% with professions libérales/cadres supérieurs and 55% with the cadres intermédiaires. In 2007, Sarkozy won the former with only 52% (+13% for the left) and lost the latter with 49% (+6% for the left). The upper middle-class was 60% for Chirac, but only 52% for Chirac. The high income-earners were about 63% for Chirac but only 57% for Sarkozy. In reverse, the lower middle-class had given 51% to Chirac but gave 53% to Sarkozy. Low income-earners, only 38% or so for Chirac gave 44% to Sarkozy. In the first round, Sarkozy did only 4% better than Chirac+Madelin+Boutin with those with higher education, but 8% better with those with less than the BAC (high school diploma).

The map shows this stark evolution well, and no region shows it better than the Île-de-France. There are other factors at play in this specific region: Chirac was mayor of Paris and had another favourite-son vote in Paris, and departments such as the Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne have large and growing immigrant communities with which Sarkozy did particularly (unsurprisingly) badly. But Paris itself and especially its inner ring of suburbs have large and growing populations of young professionals, a lot of whom increasingly move to the suburbs for cheaper property prices. Within Paris itself and other neighbouring cities such as Montreuil, gentrification or boboïsation has been at work changing the makeup of old working-class hinterlands in eastern Paris into urban, trendy neighborhoods with increasingly large young and multicultural populations.

All constituencies in the Petite Couronne, even Sarkozy’s own Neuilly-sur-Seine, swung to the left in 2007. The largest swings were unsurprisingly concentrated in Paris, where Chirac had always outperformed a generic right-winger, especially in 1995. In some cases, the swings are impressive: +7.7% in the four core arrondissements, +16.5% in Paris-18th arrondissement (which includes Montmartre), +15.7% in Paris-10, +15% in Paris-18 and 19, +14.5% in Paris-11 and 20, +7.1% in Paris-5 and 6, +11.1% in Paris-11 and 12, +9.6% in Paris-13, +9.9% in Paris-14 and so forth. Swings were smaller in the old bourgeois west end, especially the core-wealthy arrondissements 7, 8 and 16. Outside Paris, the swings were generally higher in those places which have seen significant boboïsation or are otherwise home to large populations of younger, generally well-off and highly educated voters. In the most significant examples, we find +10.1% in Montreuil, +6.8% in Pantin, +6% in Fontenay-sous-Bois and Vincennes, +3.7% in Orsay, +4.3% in Versailles Nord, +8.7% in Epinay, +7% in Colombes (south) and +3.4% in Cergy. Generally, the further you get from the downtown core and the more you get into not-as-bobo parts of the Parisian basin, the swings become minimal or they become swings in the other way (note the “red belt” of swings concentrated around the core in the Grande Couronne departments).

You will tell me that perhaps the Parisian basin could be an exception or better yet is thrown off by the abnormally high vote for Chirac in Paris in 1995. The same pattern is seen with perfect and remarkable stability throughout France. Notice the isolated spots of ‘red’ constituencies even in deep blue areas (or, in some cases, light blue indicating a mere trend). In Lyon, where Chirac had also done very well in 1995 (59%), there were large swings in the downtown core. +8.9%, for example, in the 2nd constituency which is the most bobo constituency. In Marseille, which maintains some starker contrasts between deprivation and affluence, the white working-class northeast saw a big 7% swing towards the right. But in the more trendy areas downtown, there was a 6.6% swing towards the left. In varying strengths, the same swings towards the left are repeated in other urban areas – particularly the more educated and well-off areas or neighborhoods and not as much poorer working-class areas. We see +3.2% in Grenoble’s northeast, but -3.9% in Échirolles in Grenoble’s red (communist) belt. In Dijon, the poorer and more left-wing Chenôve/southern Dijon constituency swung 3.7% towards the right, but in the more well-off (and more right-wing) northwestern Dijon/Fontaine-lès-Dijon, the swing is 1.5% towards the left. In other cities, the same stories: +4.4% in Strasbourg-centre, +3.6% in Nancy (east, north and south), +3.1% in Lille (south) and +3% in Lille (centre), +5.9% in Rouen, +3.6% in western Caen (in contrast to -0.4% in the more populaire east), +3.7% in Rennes (sud), +6.3% in Limoges,  +4.3% in Poitiers (south), +7 and 8% in Toulouse, +5.7% in Montpellier (north-centre), +5.6% in Saint-Etienne (south) and finally in the impressive category: +5.2% in Nantes-Orvault, +8.8% in Nantes (centre) and +11.2% in Bordeaux (centre) which is Alain Juppé’s old constituency.

You will rightfully tell me that 2007 is a bit old now, given what has changed since then. Where are we left off today? The most significant shift since 2007 is that Sarkozy (and the UMP) have lost the ouvriers and his spectacular inroads from 2007 now seem a long way away.

Era	% PS 95-R2	% PS 07-R2	% Left R10-R2	% Right R10-R2	% PS 12-R2 (poll)	% FN 02-R1	% FN 12-R1 (poll)
France	47%	47%	54%	36%	60%	17.2%	17%
Ouvriers	65%	54%	60%	20%	76%	30%	32%
Ouv/Fra	+18%	+7%	+6%	-16%	+16%	+13%	+15%
CPIS*	35%	48%	58%	37%	64%	30%	6%
CPIS/Fra	-12%	+1%	+2%	+1%	+4%	+13%	-11%
PI*	45%	51%	63%	29%	61%	14%	16%
CPL/Fra	-2%	+4%	+9%	-7%	+1%	-3%	-1%

* The most recent poll which gives crosstabs was Ifop on October 20, with Hollande at 60% nationally.
* Cadres supérieurs, professions libérales or Cadres et professions intellectuelles supérieures
* Professions intermédiaires or cadres moyens

The above chart is based on exit polls, and, for 2012, on actual polling, so it is perhaps not the most accurate picture but it paints a pretty clear overall picture.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s winning coalition in 2007 had been possible because, in part, of his success with ouvriers with whom he poll 46% whereas Chirac had garnered just 35% with them 12 years prior. His gains with lower-income voters in eastern France had compensated for his weaker showing with middle-income voters in western and urban France, where his 52% with the CPIS category was quite tepid compared to the margins Chirac had posted with them in 1995. Since then, the government’s more right-wing policies on matters such as immigration and particular incidents such as the Roma expulsion affair tacked the government and the UMP to the right and did little to please more centrist, moderate voters which CPIS voters can be broadly seen as politically. As a result, CPIS voters have only moved further and further to the left. But the government’s tack to the right appears increasingly desperate and has had little success in wooing over FN voters or lower-income voters such as ouvriers. A poor economy, unpopular fiscal and social policies, an elitist style (bling-bling) and corruption scandals have worked in tandem to make Sarkozy’s strong showings with these voters in 2007 seem like a very distant dream for the right. The exit polls are pretty stark on this point: the UMP polled only 17% with ouvriers in the first round of the regional elections when the UMP polled 27% nationally. In the runoff, the right won only 20% with these voters – tied with the FN. Actual polls for next year’s election shows Marine Le Pen reaching her father’s 2002 levels with ouvriers and Sarkozy collapsing to lows rarely seen even in the days of left-wing dominance of ouvriers - as low as 9% in some polls!

To tie in this story with that of 2012, the fundamental thing here is that Nicolas Sarkozy has lost the ouvriers and has been further isolated with cadres and other middle-income voters. I think that is the fundamental dynamic at work behind the polls.

This article is certainly not thorough. I have made no comment about the fact that ouvriers and lower-income voters form a big part of non-voters, I made only passing references to the FN’s strengths with ouvriers and I completely ignored the Greens’ potential challenge to the PS for the control of CPIS and middle-income voters. A lot more could be said about all these topics, but I think that I’ve covered what I wanted to cover and hit the main points in the exploration of the changing face of the French left between 1995 and 2007.