This is one of the event books of the new school year: economists Julia Cagé and Thomas Piketty venture into long-term electoral analysis in A history of political conflict, a sum of more than 800 pages, at Le Seuil. This work is all the more impressive since, unlike other countries, it is very difficult in France to find mass electoral data over a long period, as this is most often not centralized at all.
Also, they decided to publish their data for free on the Internet, on the site unehistoireduconflirpolitique.fr. A godsend for all frustrated electoral data enthusiasts. 20 minutes immersed himself in it to confirm, or not, some preconceived electoral ideas.
Jospin lost in 2002 because the working classes abandoned him
On April 21, 2002, Lionel Jospin, outgoing Socialist Prime Minister, was eliminated from the presidential election in the first round. It’s a huge surprise: for the first time, a far-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, will face the right-wing candidate, Jacques Chirac, the outgoing president. The chaotic campaign of candidate Jospin, considered too centrist, is singled out. Just like his policy for five years, sometimes considered too accommodating with emerging neoliberalism. In short, the PS has let down the working classes.
When we explore the data, it is quite counterintuitive, but we see that the Jospin vote of 2002 is relatively more popular and less bourgeois than the Jospin vote of 1995. In 2002, the 10% of municipalities with the lowest incomes weaker people voted 12% more Jospin than the rest of the country; it was only 2% more in 1995.
We nevertheless reach here a limit of Cagé and Piketty’s analysis. If Lionel Jospin outperformed in the municipalities with the poorest incomes, what tells us that it was the poorest of these municipalities who supported the socialist candidate? It’s a probability, not much more. Also, everything is relative: Lionel Jospin may have succeeded better in 2002 in these very poor municipalities compared to his national average (16%), the fact remains that in 2002, overall, there were fewer more votes for him than in 1995 (23%), in these poor communities included.
The far-right vote has always been a popular vote
This is the ambient narrative: the extreme right is the popular, working-class vote. And it’s true, today, Marine Le Pen – like her father, at the end of his career – seems to appeal more to the poorest than to the richest… even if the richest by far prefer Marine Le Pen to Jean- Luc Mélenchon, which puts things into perspective. But it has not always been so. Actually, it depends when, and it depends who.
During the first presidential election by direct universal suffrage of the Fifth Republic, in 1965, far-right lawyer Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignacourt obtained a little more than 5% of the votes. Certainly, it outperforms in the poorest 10% of municipalities, but above all it obtains 60% more than its average in the top 1% of the richest municipalities.
His campaign director, a certain Jean-Marie Le Pen, only obtained 0.75% in 1974. He underperformed in the 60% of the poorest municipalities, and outperformed in the 40% of the richest municipalities.
Everything changed during the legislative elections of 1986 and the presidential election of 1988. Little by little, the Le Pen vote became a vote of the middle classes, then, until 2022, a clearly popular vote. The Zemmour vote is diametrically opposed: it almost doubles its score in the ultra-rich municipalities.
Mélenchon, it is stronger in the upper middle classes than among the working classes
In short: the vote for Jean-Luc Mélenchon would above all be “bobo”, that is to say “bohemian bourgeois”, financially comfortable but with left-wing ideas. This is particularly what we can say when we look at the scores of the rebellious candidate, especially in 2022, in the hypercenter of large metropolises, or in eastern Paris.
Important and even unexpected scores at this level. Except that city centers are not, or no longer, always the most affluent areas of large cities. And we forget that the working-class suburbs, like Seine-Saint-Denis, but not only that, also voted massively for Mélenchon.
The data collected by Cagé and Piketty are very clear: the lower the average income of the municipality, the stronger the vote for Jean-Luc Mélenchon. And it happens almost identically in 2012, 2017 and 2022.
The green vote is a bourgeois vote
Well, the “bobo” vote for environmentalist candidates is another cliché that has a harsh skin. Only this one, we must recognize that it has truth. For the first environmentalist presidential candidate, René Dumont, in 1974, it is even a caricature: where he is the weakest, it is in the municipalities with the lowest average income, and where he is the strongest , it is in the municipalities with the highest average income.
After him, all the green candidates will adopt a very similar curve, with one big exception: the green vote collapses in very rich municipalities. To the point that all green candidates underperform among the ultra-rich. Except, except, Yannick Jadot, in 2022. Overall, we can rather speak of a vote of the middle classes, upper middle classes.
Chirac had a less bourgeois vote than Giscard, Barre or Balladur
The image of Jacques Chirac that people born, like the author of this article, have between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, has been largely influenced by The horns of info. A funny, “sympathetic”, gently opportunistic Chirac, always ready to feel the cows’ asses and available for a calf’s head washed down with a beer. So, Chirac, a “popular” right-wing candidate? Let’s compare with his right-wing challengers in 1981 (Valéry Giscard d’Estaing), 1988 (Raymond Barre) and 1995 (Édouard Balladur).
Certainly, in the 10% of municipalities with the lowest average income, Jacques Chirac, without overperforming, is systematically better than his opponents at the time. But that’s about all. Then it’s much less clear. Above all, in the municipalities of the richest top 1%, Chirac always outperforms his opponents. Much more even than Giscard (73% more than its average, compared to 49% for Giscard) and Barre (117% more, compared to 54% more), a little more than Balladur (73% more, compared to 72% of more).
The Côte d’Azur has always been right-wing
On the Riviera, it is well known, the income of residents is ultra-high, people vote very largely on the right, and even on the extreme right. And that’s true. No left-wing deputy has been elected in the 21st century either in the Var or in the Alpes-Maritimes. Only, it wasn’t always like this. Between 1936 and the end of the 1950s, it was not only the skin of tourists that was red on the coast. At that time, the Communist Party was particularly powerful in the Alpes-Maritimes, including on the coast. The PCF, taking advantage of the prestige of the Resistance, even led the department immediately after the war, until 1947.
This is another possibility of the data site in the book by Julia Cagé and Thomas Piketty: numerous maps highlight the areas of strength of each party or each bloc, and their developments. Between 34 and 36% in Cannes, Antibes, Fréjus, Grimaud and Saint-Raphaël. From 38 to 40% in Toulon, Saint-Tropez, Cogolin, Mandelieu, Nice and Villefranche. Even more in Menton, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Vallauris, Sainte-Maxime. These are the communist scores during the legislative elections of November 1946. Huge seen since 2023. Huge at the time, where the national average of the PCF is “only” 28.3%, its record never equaled since. The party, still very strong under the Fourth Republic, would continue to regularly outperform on the Côte d’Azur until the end of the 1950s. Under the Fifth Republic, it would be a different story. In 2022, Fabien Roussel rarely exceeds 1.2% in these same municipalities: two times less than its national average (2.3%).