France 2012 (runoff)

The second round of presidential elections were held in France on May 6, 2012. The first round, covered in extensive detail here, was held two weeks ago on April 22, 2012. The President of France, the head of state in a semi-presidential system, is elected for a five year term which is renewable once. France uses a traditional runoff system, where a candidate must win 50%+1 of the votes in the first round to be elected outright, or else the top two candidates in the first round proceed to a runoff held two weeks later. France has held eight direct presidential elections since 1965, and in none of these eight contests has a candidate ever won an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first round.

In the first round, incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy of the conservative UMP was distanced by a narrow margin by his main rival, François Hollande of the opposition Socialist Party (PS). Hollande took 28.6% of the vote against 27.2% for Sarkozy, the first time an incumbent president did not place first in a first round ballot. The first round was marked, above all, by the very strong showing of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who won 17.9% of the vote. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the Left Front (FG), an alliance including the old Communist Party, won 11.1% while François Bayrou of the centrist MoDem won 9.1%.

Sarkozy’s troubles were covered in extensive detail in the first round analysis. He saw his only possible path to salvation (re-election) in the form of Marine Le Pen’s voters. By the first round, Sarkozy’s campaign had taken on a very clear right-populist style, which he kept in the two week-long runoff campaign. He stepped up his traditional hard talk on immigration and security (key issues for FN voters) but also played to his strength as an incumbent who is credible, experienced and tested in the handling of economic crises. Sarkozy is a skilled politician, and he was able to roar back from unprecedented lows in second round polling a few months ago (60-40) to make it a fairly close race – although he never broke even 48% in runoff voting intentions. His successful rise in the polls from historic lows to more decent numbers (despite trailing) was due in part to his skill and charisma as a political leader, but also a certain normalization of things. Left-right runoffs in French presidential elections have never been blow-outs, and despite Sarkozy’s chronic weakness, it was never a very likely proposition that he would fall victim to a blow-out victory of the left. Right-wing voters, despite any unease with Sarkozy, floated back towards the candidate of their party.

Sarkozy, however, entered the runoff with a very steep road to climb. He had stabilized at a low of 45-46% support, and the more populaire nature of Marine Le Pen’s electorate made it harder for him to succeed in winning over an overwhelming majority of them. However, it appears as if his campagne au peuple worked out much better than I had expected. He managed to solidify his support with Marine’s first round voters to roughly 50-60%, gaining from voters who had considered abstention. At the same time, he was successful in holding on to a narrow plurality of Bayrou’s centrist voters, despite the very right-wing tone his campaign took on, to the disfavour of certain UMP moderates and other centrists. Despite Bayrou personally endorsing Hollande, a narrow (34-37%) plurality of his voters backed Sarkozy over Hollande (30-34%). Despite any unease with Sarkozy’s right-wing style, Bayrou’s more centre-right electorate seems to have aligned, not entirely but in part, behind the candidate of the right.

Sarkozy needed a blowout victory in the May 2 debate with Hollande to have a chance at actually winning the election. Hollande, never a strong debater, came into the debate as the underdog against Sarkozy, whose clear victory in the 2007 debate against Royal had proved the final blow to Royal’s faltering campaign. However, the May 2 confrontation ended up as a tie. Both candidates were equally aggressive against one another, and traded blows for the entirety of the three hour debate which, in French tradition, often turned into a shouting match or a trite schoolyard fight over a stolen sandwich rather than a serious and competently moderated debate about actual issues. Sarkozy might have gotten a narrow edge out of the debate: a few final polls showed that he had broken his upper limit of 47% and reached 47.5% or even 48%. Odds, however, remained heavily stacked against him.

Results: who, what, where, when and why?

Turnout, abstention and blank votes

Turnout was 80.35% (abstention was 19.65%), which represents a 0.87% increase in turnout from the first round. This is higher than in 2007, when abstention in the runoff was only 16%, but it is a fairly strong turnout for modern standards in a presidential contest in France. Since 1995, with the exception of 2002, there has been no major increase in turnout between both rounds, whereas in the 1980s, there was a slightly more significant increase in turnout in the runoff compared to the first round. As always, there was a two-way road in and out of abstention in the second round this year. On one hand, a minority but still not insignificant amount of voters who had abstained in the first round voted in the runoff. There are a number of reasons: less politicized voters who only vote for the very high-stakes presidential runoff which decides the head of state, but also personal reasons. On the other hand, voters who had voted for unsuccessful candidates in the first round and who did not support any other candidate chose to abstain in the runoff. Most new abstentionists who had voted in the first round came from Marine Le Pen’s electorate. Ipsos says that 24% abstained and 13% voted white or null. Ifop’s final poll said that 25% of her voters did not express a runoff voting intention. Between 15-20% of François Bayrou’s voters and somewhere between 5 and 10% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s voters did likewise.

Map 1: % change in turnout between the first round and second round (map generated by Geoclip OVF)

It is interesting to put together our first map at this point: change in turnout between the first round and the second round. The most notable and interesting aspect of this map is the significant increase in every canton in Île-de-France – no canton in that region showed lower turnout in the runoff, most showed significantly higher turnout. Overall, the region has a whole saw turnout increase by a full 3% between the two rounds.

It happens that, on April 22, l’Île-de-France was out on spring break vacations (like in 2002). Schools had closed on April 14 and only returned on April 30, thus a not insignificant amount of voters were out on vacation during the first round but were back home on May 6. Indeed, the heaviest increases in turnout in the region were recorded in fairly affluent suburban areas: those most likely to be out of town for spring break? It is also interesting to note that turnout generally increased, though not by amounts as impressive, in Aquitaine, which is in the same school vacation calendar zone as Paris’ region. Otherwise (excluding Corsica, which votes for reasons fairly unrelated to the mainland), increases in turnout were more patchy. It picked up somewhat in more right-wing rural areas, but there are also rural or mountainous left-wing regions which saw increased turnout.

On the other hand, turnout generally decreased in the Rhône-Alpes region, the greater Toulouse area, most of the Centre, the inner west and continental Brittany and large swathes of Lorraine, Champagne, Ardennes, Picardy and the north. Turnout fell across the Nord-Pas-de-Calais’ mining basin, where Marine and Mélenchon both performed well. In this region, Marine Le Pen attracted a gaucho-lepéniste vote which was more likely to abstain or vote for Hollande than go for Sarkozy. Turnout also declined, though not by very significant amounts, in working-class (left and right-leaning) rural and exurban regions of eastern France where Marine Le Pen had done well (Aisne, Oise, parts of Aube and Haute-Marne, parts of the Doubs and Haute-Saône, Vosges, Meurthe-et-Moselle, parts of Moselle). A similar dynamic was likely at work in reducing turnout in parts of the southeast including the Yssingelais, the Loire, Nord-Isère, northern Ardèche, parts of Ain and the Savoies). Using the raw data from the above map, I calculated a strong negative correlation between increase in turnout and votes for Marine Le Pen in the first round (-0.49: cantons where turnout rose where likely to have at voted below average for Marine Le Pen) In the inner west, it appears as if parts of Bayrou’s electorate might have shied away from voting in the runoff, scared away by a too right-wing Sarkozy but wary of Hollande. On the other hand, it was likely mixed in with exurban Marine voters who also took a similar decision (albeit for different reasons!). There were very little links between decrease in turnout and strong Mélenchon performances: in fact, a lot of the areas where he had done particularly well for a PCF-tradition candidate showed higher turnout (Ariège’s mountains, for example).

While turnout increased, the percentages of voters who cast valid ballots actually decreased from 78% to 75.7%. In the first round, only 1.52% of ballots had been deemed invalid and blank (blanc et nul). In the runoff, this increased to 4.66%, up from 4.2% in the 2007 runoff but down from nearly 6% in the 1995 runoff. The geography of the blanc et nul vote is quite instructive. Firstly, such behaviour is actually not very widespread in urban areas: cities and towns usually show significantly lower numbers of ballots deemed invalid or blank. Rural areas of all sorts are far likelier to cast such votes. Secondly, such behaviour finds itself very limited in favourite son regions. This year, Corrèze really stood out from its neighbors with its significantly smaller percentage of votes blancs et nuls.

In this case, while such ballots were found in high percentages throughout rural areas, there were significant concentrations of high percentages of such votes in the Haute-Saône, the Vosges, Haute-Marne, Meuse, Haute-Loire, Indre and significant parts of the Pas-de-Calais, Aube, Oise, Aisne, Allier, Puy-de-Dôme and the Cher. Marine Le Pen did well in most of these departments, and in those areas her vote tended to be of a sociologically left-wing, working-class/populaire background. This is especially the case in the Vosges, Haute-Saône and the Haute-Marne around Saint-Dizier. Marine Le Pen herself cast a vote blanc, and her political home base in the Pas-de-Calais’ mining basin showed very high numbers of votes blancs et nuls. I calculated a very strong correlation of 0.58 between votes blancs et nuls in the runoff and votes for Marine Le Pen in the first round (percentage-wise, of course).

Without further blabber, the results were as follows:

François Hollande (PS) 51.64%
Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) 48.36%

Before making any further comments, let us pause and reflect on the most significant aspect of these results. The incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, elected by a comfortable margin in 2007, was defeated for re-election and hence became the second French president to lose reelection, joining a club which had since 1981 been a one-man club, led by Giscard, who had been defeated by another Socialist named François – Mitterrand. This in itself is a pretty significant thing, which is made all the more impressive when one considers that Sarkozy made winning the presidency (and presumably holding on to it) the goal of his entire political career, that he had gained a significant international stature and notoriety during his presidency and was known for his political talent, skill and cunning. Just from this standpoint, Hollande’s victory is a significant political feat, regardless of one’s opinion of him or his policies.

François Hollande won, in the end, as he had been expected to since the campaign began. However, his final result proves to be quite disappointing for him. Only one poll in the final stretch showed him lower than 52.5% (Ifop’s final tracker put him at 52%), and he won ‘only’ 51.6%. Because Hollande was the overwhelming favourite right into the very last minutes, he fell victim to the old game of expectations. A great victory, along the lines of Mitterrand’s 1988 trouncing of Chirac (54-46) would have been considered an excellent result and granted Hollande much political legitimacy and increased clout in the transition and honeymoon period. A result along the lines of Sarkozy’s 2007 result (53-47) would still be seen as a success, but would be a mediocre but acceptable result for the UMP. A result between 52 and 53% would have been a nice enough victory, neither great nor particularly bad, and would have allowed the UMP to breathe a bit easier. A result along the lines of Mitterrand’s first win over an incumbent in 1981 (51.76%) would be a disappointing underperformance for the PS, “good enough” in terms of actually winning but weak in the long-term perspective. At the same time, it would allow the UMP to perk its heads up a tiny bit and smile a bit at a defeat which is not that bitter and not that crippling.

Ultimately, and it was fairly surprising, Hollande won by a margin very close to Mitterrand ’81 (in fact, even smaller of a margin). This proved to be a disappointing underperformance for Hollande, who certainly won, but didn’t really win (emphasis on the font!). In the long-term, it could prove to weaken him and shorten the honeymoon period to almost nothing. On the left, a narrow result likely tends to weaken the PS’ clout over its smaller allies and friends (Mélenchon and the Greens, most notably). On the right, while Sarkozy’s defeat gives the UMP a black eye, it is not that bad of a black eye (and it’s only on one eye, you could say) overall. It allows the UMP to perk its mood up a bit and swallow the still bitter pill of defeat a bit more easily. It makes the UMP slightly less vulnerable to either internal explosion or a solid consolidation of Marine Le Pen’s momentum behind the FN.

Compared only to the final polls, which gave Hollande between 53.5% and 52%, what happened? Firstly, it must be noted that it is not at all uncommon or even surprising from an unpopular incumbent to underpoll by a fairly significant margin. I don’t know, in this particular case, if it is a case of French shy Tory, a case of a slightly ashamed Sarkozyst who ultimately decides to “go the safe way” with the devil they know best or voters who hesitated between abstention and Sarkozy but were ultimately remobilized by Sarkozy. In the final days, with things apparently drifting away from Sarkozy with Bayrou personally backing Hollande, the first signs of speculation about the Hollande government post-May 6 and an inconclusive debate, it is possible that you had a rally-round-the-flag effect on the right, with voters remobilized and slightly remotivated behind Sarkozy, an ultimately unsuccessful last straw attempt to stand behind either the candidate as a person or his party/ideological family. The overall evolution of turnout, with the aforementioned increases in a fair number of more conservative rural or mountainous regions, might have given a tiny net boost to Sarkozy. Indeed, it appears as if those who did not vote in the first round but did vote in the runoff apparently backed Sarkozy by a narrow margin (though I haven’t found any stuff from Ifop or Ipsos on this topic).

I know that my good friend and loyal reader of this blog, Antonio V, is eager for an explanation about, in the wider scheme of things, Hollande’s underperformance and Sarkozy’s relative success in the first and second round campaign. First (and foremost), it must be noted that I never bought the 60-40 polls, not even the 56-44 or 55-45 polls. Presidential elections are serious business, and voters are much less likely to make their ballots into middle fingers to the government in power. The right may have lost the 2010 and 2011 ‘mid-term’ elections by very big margins, but not only were we dealing with local elections (played a lot, it must remembered, on regional and local issues) which are nowadays favourable to the left, but also fairly low-stakes elections where unhappy right-wingers could afford to show their displeasure with the government in power without electing, for that matter, a left-wing President in his stead. On the other hand, presidential elections being the high-stakes contests they are, pure protest votes are fairly rare (no, not all votes for Marine Le Pen or Mélenchon are ‘protest votes’ as clueless journalists like to claim!) and, despite everything, the main partisan and ideological families usually end up rallying behind their candidate. Look at results of presidential election runoff since 1965, excepting the screwed up 1969 and 2002 runoffs: they all tend to be fairly narrow. Even Mitterrand’s victory in 1988 was not a real blowout, as he only took 54% and a terribly unpopular and extremely weak opponent still managed 46% of the vote. In 1995, despite an incumbent Socialist president who was deeply unpopular and a PS which had, after 1993 and 1994, been in a terrible state, Lionel Jospin managed to get 47%. Even in 2007, the PS, with a candidate just crippled in a debate, who failed to truly convince her base and who ultimately never came close to weighing up to Sarkozy’s political skill and talent, still won nearly 47% of the vote. To use a case which is very similar to 2012, Giscard lost the 1981 election by a narrow (51.8-41.2) margin despite having been handed a huge slap in the face in the 1977 local elections and being the unpopular leader of a very unpopular government.

The same thing happened this year. Prior to the real campaign, when the quasi-campaign was a weird and terrible bastard child of off-year/mid-term protest sentiment and presidential year serious stuff, Sarkozy was down by significant margins as, while the left backed its candidate with near unanimity in opposition to Sarkozy, the right-wing base was divided and dissatisfied with the incumbent. From the ridiculous heights of 60-40 and even 56-44, a significant narrowing of the gap was a natural phenomenon. True enough, Sarkozy managing to close the gap down to 51.6-48.4 is surprising, but I always had a tough time believing that somebody who has Sarkozy’s charisma, stamina and political skill, talent and cunning would go down by a very big margin.

Secondly, it must be noted that a vote for Sarkozy is not necessarily a Sarkozyst vote, if you get my gist. The election was pretty surely a referendum on Sarkozy – we’ll come back to that – but it is certain that not all voters voted in such fashion. Ipsos’ exit poll showed that 54% of those who voted for Sarkozy in the runoff did so because they wanted him to be President but you still had 46% who voted for him because they didn’t want Hollande for President. 60% of Bayrou-Sarko voters and 70% of Marine-Sarko voters explained their votes in such a way, but you still had a fairly significant 35% of Sarkozy’s first round voters saying they had voted for Sarkozy because they didn’t want Hollande to be President.

This may be a presidential campaign, and we’re all fed the stories about how it’s only a personality contest, but let’s remember that you still have a fair number of partisan voters who vote for their’s party’s candidate in all but the worst of circumstances. Out of Sarkozy’s voters, there were not only hard-core Sarkozyst who were in love with him and enamored by the entirety of his government’s record over the past five years. There were also loyal right-wing voters, who may not have been the most hard-core of Sarkozysts, but who are ideologically and/or traditionally right-leaning or conservative. In the end, whatever their problems with the nuts and bolts of Sarkozy’s record, they were either worried by the prospect of a left-wing victory, returned to their traditional right-wing roots or rallied behind an incumbent who they might consider as imperfect but ultimately – perhaps – a tested, experienced and competent leader. In the debate, Sarkozy, overall, tended to play a lot on the aspect of being a tested, experienced leader.

Finally, as Mitterrand once said, France might be a right-wing country which sometimes elects left-wing governments. While I find the idea of classifying a country of 46 million registered voters as left or right-wing to be downright stupid, there might be a certain truth to it. Perhaps France has a politically conservative inclination? Yet, I shy away from such simplistic and reductionist partisan interpretations. Perhaps France is more structurally right-wing than it appears to be, but it cannot be a convincing explanation.

This election has often been branded by the media and observers as a referendum over Sarkozy more than anything else. In this way, Hollande did not have to worry as much about his own personal image or even the details of his platform, but could instead stand in an enviable spot as the anti-incumbent to an unpopular incumbent, the change candidate against the unwanted status-quo. Hollande exploited this benefit to its maximum, and this advantage allowed him to steer clear of any significant trouble during the campaign. He was never seriously hurt by his comparative weaknesses on issues such as foreign policy and economic/fiscal policy. Even his Achilles’ heel – his lack of a strong ‘presidential stature’ never really hurt him.

Hollande also milked all the benefits of the ‘normal President’ creed he took on from day one. Against an incumbent nicknamed l’agité and known above all for his unconventional, erractic and off-the cuff style, a remarkably short temper and a strong penchant for show and le bling-bling; it appears as if voters were thirsty for a normal president who returned the presidency to its more distinguished traditional stature. Sarkozy was definitely hurt a lot by his image – perhaps even more than his actual policy. The bling-bling for which he became (in)famous contradicted his populist creed adopted in 2007. His proximity to wealth, big money and tycoons hurt him in a country in which money and excessive wealth is generally considered a social taboo or at least frowned upon. Hollande did not promise voters a superhero president, but rather a ‘normal’ president. His normal image allowed him to appear closer to voters, more connected to their problems and perhaps more amiable than Sarkozy (though I’d wager most voters would not fancy having a beer one-on-one with any of the two, for different reasons).

This campaign, from a more political and electoral standpoint, was marked by the clash of two campaign styles. François Hollande, like Mitterrand in 1988, aimed to win the election ‘in the centre’, which means without adopting overly populist rhetoric on economic matter and not running away from institutions such as the European Union. Hollande, however, also allowed himself to go for a more anti-incumbent and more left-leaning sideshow, closer to Mitterrand’s 1981 changer la vie (without the youthful naïve optimism embodied in that famous creed) than to his 1988 France unie centrism. On the right, Nicolas Sarkozy’s avowed campaign strategy was to win through a campagne au people (populism, in this case right-populism). After the first round, I commented on the weaknesses of the Sarkozyst tactic, which found itself hindered by Sarkozy’s record as an incumbent (generally, incumbents do not hope to win re-election on a populist path but generally through consensual centrism emphasizing their experience).

I was probably correct in my observations after the first round, but admittedly the runoff saw some rather different dynamics at play, some of which were probably to be expected.

Firstly, it is now debatable whether Hollande actually ‘won in the centre’. If he did, it was narrow. Even then, ‘winning in the centre’ in his case only takes into account his rhetoric and his campaign’s rationale. It appears as if, when voters were asked, Hollande did not win because of his reassuring moderate image but rather because of his position as the anti-incumbent. Ipsos’ exit poll confirms the narrative about the election being a referendum on Sarkozy. 55% of Hollande’s second round voters said they voted for him to prevent Sarkozy’s reelection while only a minority (45%) said they voted for him because they wanted him to be President. A full 43% of Hollande’s first round voter said they voted for him to defeat Sarkozy, a huge majority (71% and 75%) of Mélenchon and Bayrou’s voters (who voted for Hollande in the runoff) said that defeating Sarkozy was the main reason they backed Hollande.

From a short-term electoral standpoint, the election being a battle between Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Not-Sarkozy played to Hollande’s advantage. Now, this could prove to be a major weakness for Hollande who was perhaps not elected on his record but rather in opposition to his rival’s record. In this case, the election likely proved to be about Sarkozy’s defeat rather than Hollande’s defeat. This could shorten Hollande’s honeymoon period and lay the groundwork for future nightmares. Hollande enters the Elysée with much less “legitimacy” than he would have if he had won with 53%.

I have to admit that the success of Sarkozy’s campagne au peuple in the runoff, which got confused with a campagne au Front national, proved more successful than I had anticipated it. I had much reserves about the chances for success of such a strategy, given that the FN’s electorate in 2012 was sociologically fairly working-class or lower middle-class, two social categories with which Sarkozy had performed extremely weakly with in the first round. Ultimately, Sarkozy’s performance with Marine Le Pen’s first round voters proved insufficient but still a very good showing for him considering all the things going against him.

According to Ipsos, 50% of Marine Le Pen’s first round voters voted for Sarkozy against 24% who did not vote, 13% who voted for Hollande and 13% who cast an invalid or white vote. According to Ifop, 54% of her voters opted for Sarkozy against 21% for Hollande and 24% who did not express a preference.

However, his right-populist and, some would say, FN-lite campaign in the runoff did not really hinder his chances with Bayrou’s reduced (and more traditionally centrist/centre-right) electorate. Despite their candidate voting for Hollande, 40% backed Sarkozy against 27% for Hollande, 17% who did not vote and 17% who cast an invalid or white vote (Ipsos). Ifop, on the other hand, did show a much more divided centrist electorate: 41% for Sarkozy, 40% for Hollande.

What seems to have happened in the runoff which could serve the explain Sarkozy’s stronger-than-expected showing and Hollande’s Pyrrhic victory is a certain shift away from pure anti-incumbent dynamics to a more traditional, “blank slate” dynamic. The first round was clearly fought on an anti-incumbent dynamic. The runoff, which has always been about ‘eliminating’ after ‘choosing’ two weeks earlier, did not quite shed all the anti-incumbent dynamic (to Sarkozy’s chagrin) but the dynamic edged closer towards a more traditional kind of dynamic which can be styled a “blank slate” dynamic. The election became even more personalized, and Mr. Not-Sarkozy slowly became perceived, in the eyes of voters, as his true self.

This in and of itself was always dangerous for Hollande, whose Not-Sarkozy image was always much stronger than his personal image. It is not to say that he’s a bad candidate, in fact he proved to be a much stronger candidate than anyone would have anticipated a year ago. However, he was more vulnerable to Sarkozy’s antics when voters started judging him based on his platform, his personality and his ideas. Sarkozy certainly pounded on the “risk” which Hollande’s promises of “change” carried. For the small but influential minority of fledgling voters, there was probably an inclination by these voters to go for the ‘devil they know’. This dynamic was probably most pronounced with some of Bayrou’s traditionally centrist and Christian democrat/UDF voters and some far-right voters. Polls report that Sarkozy narrowly won late deciders, though a large majority had decided long before May 6.

There was a bit of a “blank slate” dynamic at work, where both partisan and ideological families rallied around their respective candidates. On the far-right, there was certainly a “blank slate” effect whereby voters opted to back a candidate who, despite a poor record, was ideologically closer to them and shared their similar inclinations for authority, order, nationalism and so forth. This is what a blank slate effect refers to: voters are compelled, by the high stakes of the election, to cast a vote which is based more on their own ideological leanings than any personal disagreement with the candidate of their ideological tradition. An incumbent is sometimes forgiven for his wrongs and for his mistakes by voters hailing from the incumbent’s wider political family. Ultimately, the FN naturally tends to be much closer to the mainstream right in its current incarnation than to to mainstream left in its current incarnation. There is less room in runoffs for protest votes, and much more ideological and partisan votes, as the parties find their solid bases. There was certainly an anti-incumbent effect at work here, and there were quasi-protest votes, but in large parts, the election ended up being fought on traditional partisan and ideological bases.

Anti-Sarkozysm remained a powerful motivator, but ultimately the high waves of anti-Sarkozysm were limited to the ideological left and did not really break the levies and flood over into the centre and the far-right. On the left, however, the waves remained quite high. The best proof is probably the very strong vote transfers towards Hollande coming from Mélenchon’s voters. Despite any weariness or dissatisfaction towards Hollande, the vast majority of Mélenchon’s voters were swept up in the wave of anti-Sarkozysm. Ipsos tells me that 80% of his voters backed Hollande, against only 6% for Sarkozy. Abstention and invalid/white votes were far more limited: only 10% and 4% respectively. There were only very few strongly left-wing voters who, through ideological convictions, refused to vote for the “wimp” Hollande, even over Sarkozy. The mood of the left – the entire left – was radically anti-Sarkozyst. It mobilized the entire left-wing electorate, not just the core PS voters, but even PCF and Green sympathizers. Hollande being able to tap in to the powerful anti-Sarkozyst forces on the left with much ease and keep them mobilized proved to be a major factor in his victory.

Exit Poll Analysis

As I did following the first round, I broke down Ipsos’ study on the sociology of the electorate. I also looked over Ifop’s similar poll, which gives some different results in spot. By way of comparison, the chart below (which is the Ipsos study) compares the performance of each candidate to their performance or that of their party’s candidate in the 2007 presidential runoff, as measured by the 2007 Ipsos sondage jour du vote. For comparisons further back in time, I used Ipsos’ archived data on the 1995 presidential runoff and the Sofres’ archived data on the 1981 presidential runoff. I would advise much caution in the interpretation of some of these results and especially their comparisons with 2007, given the problems inherent in small samples and differing definitions and samples in 2007 and 2012.

There was no significant gender gap, but there was a wider age gap. Hollande performed best with young voters, which have always leaned to the left, while Sarkozy only retained dominance with seniors, winning the 60+ vote by a 59-41 margin. Ifop corroborates the main trend, though reports a less impressive left-wing advantage with young voters (only 56-44 with under 35s) and a less impressive Sarkozyst performance with seniors – 55-45 with voters aged above 65. I would not put too much behind the changes compared to the 2007 results.

The artisans et commerçants (artisans, shopkeepers, small business owners) confirmed their very strong allegiance to the right, with Ipsos pegging their vote at 70% for Sarkozy and Ifop at 67% for Sarkozy. Both of these numbers would represent a significant loss for Sarkozy compared to the 2007 election in which he won a full 82% of their votes, a trend which could signify a certain unease with a president who has proven too elitist and not reformist enough.

Indeed, by their markedly right-wing leanings, artisans and shopkeepers express a strong opposition to the left’s penchant for state intervention and its proximity to salaried employees and trade unions. Artisans and shopkeepers are not generally of the “upper classes”, rather they are a traditional petite bourgeoisie which has lived in constant fear of proletarization and has cultivated a visceral opposition to the left’s historical traditions rooted in Marxist collectivism.

Not quite economically liberal capitalists, the petite bourgeoisie of merchants and shopkeepers is nonetheless fiercely individualistic, egalitarian and instinctively conservative if not reactionary. It founded the base of the Poujadist movement in 1956, and has since been one of the FN’s most prominent factions though they are particularly receptive to Sarkozy’s unorthodox mix of individualism, conservatism and weird hybrid of colbertisme and libéralisme. The 2007 and 2012 rhetoric of individual responsibility, la valeur travail (the ‘value’ or ethic of work and labour) and authority found its most enthusiastic reception with these voters, though some might have fallen out with Sarkozy since 2007 because of his more elitist and liberal penchant for the bling-bling and his improvised economic policies, at times liberal and favouring the privilégiés (privileged upper class) at other times, more Gaullst in its statist and colbertist leanings.

The cadres and professions libérales are a very socially and politically diverse grouping, thus grouping them into a single ensemble – while inevitable (because France hates psephology) – is quite reductive. Overall, Ipsos tells us that Hollande won these professionals with 52%, while Ifop found a much wider 56-44 gap in Hollande’s favour. When breaking down this wide category, it is likely that Ipsos is closer to the mark. Whatever their vote this year, they posted historic numbers for the left, the culmination of a left-wing trend. Sarkozy had won them 52-48 in 2007, which had already been a very weak showing for a right-wing candidate. In 1995, Chirac had won about 65% with these voters and in 1981, an election whose final numbers proveed eerily close to this year’s results, Giscard had handily defeated Mitterrand with these voters, taking 62% of their vote.

If these professionals can be summarized, they are clearly the members of the broad so-called ‘elite’. They are highly educated professionals, upper middle-class in their standing. They range from professions libérales in the private sphere including independent doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, notaries or engineers to upper-echelon public servants (managerial) to secondary education teachers, professors and researchers to artists and journalists to managers, supervisors and other cadres in the private sector. Hollande likely clearly dominated the field with public sector managers and professionals, but also teachers, professors and other researchers. On the other hand, we can probably assume that Sarkozy dominated the field with professions liberals whose independent, non-salaried status makes them hostile to the left and closer to the right’s traditional values of individual responsibility and initiative. Indeed, a poll by Ifop had shown that Sarkozy was by far the favourite with doctors and pharmacists. While some lower-level managers and cadres in the private sector might have voted for Hollande, we can assume that the higher managers and assimilated professionals of the private sector, either because of their wealth or professional status, remained strongly Sarkozyst.

The right’s gains in historically left-wing CSP- categories (employees, ouvriers) have been counterbalanced with the left’s gains over the right in CSP+ categories, most notably these cadres and professions libérales. The progressive transformation of the PS from an old style, SFIO-ish neo-Marxist and working-class party into a socially liberal and social democratic party of the centre-left has been accompanied with major left-wing inroads with professionals, affluent salaried middle-classes and above all with individuals with a so called large ‘cultural capital’ (higher education, intellectual jobs and so forth). These voters – if they can be summarized given their heterogeneity – are socially liberal, pro-European, middle-class, urban and receptive to rhetoric about equality, tolerance and internationalism.

The professions intermédiaires turned heavily against Sarkozy. According to Ipsos, Hollande won them 60-40 while Ifop shows a smaller but still significant gap in the left’s favour at 57-43. In 2007, Sarkozy had lost them by two points (51-49) to Royal. The professions intermédiaires are a wide category, including both private and public sector workers, and ranging from school teachers to foremen to qualified technicians to sales representatives and other intermediate-grade jobs. They are, in their outlook and status, a middle-class between the upper middle-class of cadres and the working-class of ouvriers and employees. Their political outlook cannot be classified with ease. Teachers, social workers and other intermediate-grade civil servants are a core redoubt of the PS and take a social democratic outlook on politics, being closely attached to the values of tolerance, equality and social justice. On the other hand, private sector intermediate-grade salaried employees are likely more right-leaning, and are more concerned about bread and butter issues.

The dramatic shift to the left of this category reflects a finding we had picked up on April 22: Sarkozy has lost considerably with salaried middle-classes of all stripes, and the professions intermédiaires are the best representatives of this type of electorate. He was likely the inadvertent victim of the economic crisis, which has had a large and negative effect on these salaried middle-classes: job loses, the first signs of fiscal austerity, declining purchasing power and rising fuel prices. His controversial pension reform was probably coolly received by these voters, while civil servants and teachers in this category turned virulently anti-Sarkozyst in reaction to job losses in education and his confrontational attitude with public sector unions and the like.

Sarkozy lost employees, as in 2007, but there is disagreement between our two pollsters by how much: Ipsos says he lost them handily, 56-44, while Ifop says he lost them by a margin only marginally bigger than that by which he lost them in 2007 – 52-48 (against 51-49 in 2007). Ipsos is probably closer in this case. Once again, we are dealing with a broad category, which has been generalized to lower-echelon employees and so forth. The ranks of this category range from lower-level public servants (agents de services), clerks, secretaries, police officers, administrative employees, cashiers, clerks, salesmen but also personal service workers (hair dressers, nannies, bartenders, restaurant servers, hotel clerks, concierges).

Their political inclinations are diverse, and probably tend to divide based on their sphere of work (public or private). Public sector employees can be counted on to have been very solidly behind Hollande, but private sector employees might have tended to split more in Sarkozy’s favour. Indeed, private sector and non-salaried employees tend to be far more favourable to the UMP and the FN; they are very concerned about unemployment, job security, purchasing power and cost of living issues. Despite Sarkozy’s poor record on most of these issues, they likely remained more or less resistant, this year as in yesteryears, to the left. Sarkozy’s quasi-nationalist populist appeal might have, for these employees, counteracted Hollande’s consensual anti-Sarkozyst centre-leftism. Disproportionate amounts of this latter kind of employees might be found in the périurbain subi, which we will come to when we look at good ol’ maps.

Ouvriers (manual workers, both qualified and unqualified) are probably, out of all these socioprofessional categories, those about which the most ink has been spilled. Traditionally and historically, ouvriers have formed the backbone of the French left, which, in the glory days of the 50s and late 70s used to command the support of about seven in ten workers. A strong tradition of socialization in a Communist milieu in the immediate post-war era maintained strong familial links of left-wing (and oftentimes, Communist) political orientation. However, since Mitterrand’s election in 1981 and especially since the 1990s, the left has been alarmed at the pace at which their old backbone have been deserting them and flirting for anti-system options, be it the unconventional far-left of Arlette and Olivier or the far-right of Jean-Marie and his daughter. There is a feeling that the left has abandoned its working-class roots and has shifted its style, rhetoric and strategy towards gentrified middle-classes, salaried public employees and the bobos. Indeed, the PS’ style since 1983 has been edging towards either feel-good consensual, moderated toned-down centre-leftism or New Left rhetoric about social justice, equality or tolerance. The Marxist rhetoric about the class struggle, the proletariat and even the mitterrandien creed of changer la vie was left on the side of the road, ready to be picked up by parties to the left or right of the PS.

Le Pen started picking up these votes a plenty in 1995, with his rhetorical shift from the old Poujadist anti-communism and anti-statism of the early 1980s towards his brand of right-populist nationalism which appealed to voters who increasingly felt marginalized, sidelined, abandoned and invisible in the winds of globalization and in the changing face of the PS. The working-class vote which Le Pen and his daughter picked up was politically diverse, but it was a true protest vote – against the bipartisan political system edging (until Sarkozy) towards mushy centrism, globalization, economic stagnation or decline and political and social marginalization. Later on, Sarkozy’s unconventional brand of respectable right-populism in 2007 proved to have a strong appeal to working-class voters (he lost ouvriers by a historically small margin of 54-46).

The ouvriers are a diverse bunch too. It includes qualified and unqualified manual workers but beyond that includes all types of workers from diverse industries: heavy industry, light industry and small manufacturing, mining, metalworking, textile, steelworks, nuclear energy, construction or public works. Carpenters, masons, construction workers, electricians, plumbers, farm workers, gardeners, truck drivers, taxi drivers, butchers, bakers, longshoremen and cheminots all fall under the broad hat of this socioprofessional category. Their social heterogeneity has also resulted in a certain political heterogeneity. Even in the peak days of the late 70s, a sizable 30% of workers were right-leaning, a fact which Mélenchon keenly pointed out during the campaign, also taking the opportunity to call these three in ten right-wing working-class voters “not too bright”.

Hollande won ouvriers with either 58% (Ipsos) or 57% (Ifop) this year, making them about 5-7% more left-wing than the country. 57-58 is neither bad (Royal’s 54-46 was bad, although they remained 7% more left-wing than the country) nor exceptionally good. In fact, it is quite underwhelming when you consider that Hollande won. In 1981, when the margin was similar, Mitterrand had handily trounced Giscard with ouvriers, 67 to 33%, which would mean that Hollande lost about 9-10% of Mitterrand’s 1981 numbers with these voters. In 1995, according to Ipsos, Jospin beat Chirac with ouvriers by a 65-35 margin. Consider, however, that Jospin lost that same election by about 5.5%. We are a long way away from the polls at the turn of the year which let us believe that Hollande could return to the peak of the 1970s with ouvriers and destroy Sarkozy with some 65-35 or 70-30 gap.

Hollande thus underperformed with the working-class, again, while Sarkozy – considering that he lost 4.6% nationally – held up comparatively well. In this case, it is likely a bit of ‘blank slate’ effect where voters must have forgiven Sarkozy some of his mistakes and preferred his tough, “steady hand on the wheel”/devil you know populist rhetoric. It also reflects that protest voting was less prevalent in the runoff than the first round or the 2010-2011 mid-terms. Our maps will teach us instructive lessons about the vote transfers from Marine’s working-class first round base and where Sarkozy’s resistance with the working-class was strongest.

To complete this socioprofessional breakdown, we shift to Ipsos and Ifop’s questions on the employment sector of the interviewee. A traditional private-public gap emerged. The public sector was solidly behind Hollande, which he won with either 63% (Ifop) or 65% (Ipsos), a gain of 8% over Royal on the 2007 Ipsos data. Sarkozy’s policies vis-à-vis education, pensions, healthcare and spending reviews (RGPP) proved extremely unpopular. At times, he gave the impression of picking fights with the public sector and their unions. On the other hand, private sector salaried employees were more divided: they backed Hollande 52-48, after having voted for Sarkozy with 53% in 2007. Their vote is more varied, and can hardly be described as relatively politically homogeneous as that of the wider public sector. However, in general, the private naturally tends more to the right.

The preoccupations, concerns and values of the public and private are similar in some aspects but also quite different in other regards. Public sector employees, notably teachers and healthcare professionals, tend to be concerned about the decline of public services and the “hollowing out”  of the state in some areas of social action. Naturally, such concerns lead them to favour the left. The private is more concerned about job security, less concerned about the changing role of the state in society. Finally, Sarkozy heavily dominated with self-employed workers (indépendants), entrepreneurs and employers. He won about 60-61% of their vote, which would be down quite a bit on 2007 (when he won them 77-23!). Like artisans and shopkeepers, these self-employed workers are far more individualistic and have always been extremely resistant to the left and the associated ideas of state intervention.

Unemployed voters backed Hollande 62-38, but for some reason, Sarkozy performed rather strongly compared to 2007 with unemployed voters. These voters traditionally tend to be extremely anti-incumbent, but Sarkozy managed a surprisingly strong result with them this year. The result of a larger number of unemployed voters in 2012 compared to 2007, widening the political composition of this electorate?

Ifop and Ipsos conflict when it comes to vote by diploma. Ipsos shows Sarkozy strongest with those with basic non-BAC certifications (BEPC, BEP, CAP, CEP) and those with a BAC +2. Conversely, Hollande performs strongest at both extremes and in the middle: he does extremely well (59-41) with those with no diploma, and dominates (55-45) with those who have a BAC and also with those with a BAC +3 or higher. Ifop, conversely, tells me that Sarkozy won (53-47) those with no diploma, did worse (55-45) with those who have the BAC and lost narrowly (51-49) with all other categories. Ultimately, education all boils down to income levels and socioprofessional status. In this day and age, the left’s support probably forms something of a parabolic curve, doing best at both ends (those with no diploma and those with post-secondary qualifications).

Ipsos broke down the vote by income levels, though with four large income categories we are a long way from the breakdowns we see in the United States. Ifop didn’t even ask based on income, and Ipsos only started asking based on quantifiable set categories this year; an attitude which reveals the French psyche’s attitude towards wealth and money. The results are hardly surprising: Sarkozy’s support increased as the voter got wealthier. He only won the top category (those earning 3000 euros or more), with 56%, while Hollande had a cross-class appeal with the poorest voters but also the broader middle-class, with whom he made the strongest gains against Royal’s 2007 result (when Ipsos measured income based on interviewee self-identification as rich or poor).

The breakdown of the vote by partisan and ideological self-identification are hardly surprising or interesting. Sarkozy lost all of the minor but still fairly sizable inroads he made with about 10% of left-wing voters in 2007, but Hollande did not make significant gains with right-wingers. FG, PS and Green voters backed Hollande with huge numbers, as did UMP voters for Sarkozy. According to Ipsos, centrists and MoDemites split 62-38 in Sarkozy’s favours, but Ifop has them nearly even at 52-48 for Sarkozy. About eight in ten FN sympathizers who voted did so for Sarkozy.

What was the most important voting determinant? If Ipsos is to be believed, then it was, yes, religion. According to Ipsos, if only Catholics could vote, then Sarkozy would have won reelection handily with 57% of the vote. Even more impressive, regularly practicing Catholics confirmed their strong allegiance to the mainstream right, with 76% of them voting for Sarkozy. The Catholic ethos and values associated with Catholicism has always tended to favour the right. Attachment to values such as the family, social order, the respect of hierarchy and authority, entrepreneurship and individual initiative has bred political conservatism. The left’s shift towards moral liberalism, with Hollande openly supporting gay marriage, likely played some role in further motivating some conservative regularly practicing Catholics to vote for Sarkozy, who at various times during his campaign played on the ”Christian identity” of France.

Occasionally practicing Catholics backed Sarkozy with 62% of the vote, while non-practicing Catholics backed Sarkozy with 54%. Despite the left’s strong inroads into the old Catholic terrains of western France, Brittany and the Massif Central; those voters who identify as Catholics have retained their traditional loyalty to the right, even though those who are ‘Catholics in name only’ tend to be less homogeneous in their voting habits. Indeed, the left’s gains in regions such as Brittany or even the Massif Central have not been the direct result of devout Catholics retaining their religious traditions but switching political allegiances, but rather the result of the secularization of the regional culture and the increasing amount of secular, agnostic or atheist voters in these regions. A geographic analysis confirms the same trends: the most devoutly Catholic regions of departments such as the Ille-et-Vilaine, Morbihan, Manche, Mayenne, Vendée, Lozère, Aveyron, Cantal or Haute-Loire remain solidly left-wing. Rather, the left’s major inroads have come from secularized or secularizing regions – which often tend to be in the sphere of influence of a large urban centre (Rennes, Laval, Caen, Rodez, Aurillac or Le Puy for example).

Those who claimed another religion backed Hollande with 63% of the vote. These other religions have historically included Jews (who tend to be rather right-leaning as of late) and Protestants (who are split between solidly left-wing Calvinists in the south and solidly right-wing Lutherans in Alsace-Moselle). However, in recent years, an increasingly large number of those claiming another religion have been Muslims. Though their cultural ethos is very socially conservative, their social status has led them to favour the left with overwhelming numbers (Hollande likely won over 90% of the Muslim vote).

At the other end of the spectrum, those with no religion gave Hollande 68% of the vote. The irreligious vote has always been very heavily left-wing, because the cultural ethos associated with ‘irreligion’ is naturally left-leaning. Traditionally, the values of social justice, social solidarity, tolerance, equality and moral liberalism has been at the core of the cultural ethos of non-religious voters. However, as the ranks of this electorate have swelled since the 1970s, their vote has become less homogeneously left-wing. In the 1970s, the lack of religion was strongly associated with the left, as it symbolized a rebellion against the established cultural and religious order of sorts. Since then, with the secularization of society, the lack of religion has become far more acceptable and also far more common. Their vote remains solidly left-wing, but not as solidly and homogeneously left-wing as in 1974.

The difference between the two extremes – regularly practicing Catholics and those with no religion was 44% this year. In 1974, the difference was 62% – Giscard won 80% with regularly practicing Catholics while Mitterrand won 82% of the vote with non-religious voters.

Geographic Analysis

Map 2: Margin of victory or defeat for F. Hollande (PS) by canton (source: Geoclip)

The overall map of the runoff is similar to that of the first round. Hollande has a wide geographic base, and raked in some very strong performances in some core left-wing strongholds of the old southwest (breaking 60% or at least 55% in the bulk of them) but also in his native Corrèze (64%).

As in the first round, Hollande’s map, when set against that of Mitterrand in 1981, is much more western and southwestern. All five departments in Brittany backed Hollande, even traditionally conservative Morbihan. In Mitterrand’s era, the left’s only base in the region had been the Côtes-d’Armor and isolated bastions in the Finistère and Loire-Atlantique. Even though Hollande retrieved the old Socialist bastions of the north, Picardy, Upper Normany and Meurthe-et-Moselle, which Royal had lost in 2007, his strongest or more impressive performances are not to be found in those old left-wing strongholds. Rather, they are to be found in the Southwest and Massif Central – most significantly in departments such as the Aveyron, Cantal, Haute-Loire or Lozère, whose political histories have been ones of right-wing dominance.

They are also to be found in urban areas. Hollande won over 55% of the vote in Paris, becoming the first PS candidate to win the French capital. He also won the traditionally moderate bourgeois capitale de Gaules, Lyon, with 53%, when Jospin had won only 41% of the vote in that city in 1995. Lyon, the longtime “capital” of the UDF awarded a significantly higher percentage of the vote to Hollande than Marseille (which he won by the skin of his teeth), the city of Gaston Defferre and a city with long history of Socialist institutional dominance.

He raked in over 60% of the vote in western cities such as Caen, Rennes, Nantes, Quimper, Brest, Niort, Poitiers and La Rochelle. Rennes, Nantes, Brest, Niort or La Rochelle are hardly surprising results, but consider the fact that Caen elected its first left-wing mayor in ages only eleven years ago!

Hollande benefited from a very strong favourite regional and favourite son effect in his semi-native Corrèze. He won 64.9% of the vote, while Jacques Chirac had won 61.4% in 1995. Favourite son votes are much stronger and noticeable in more rural and isolated department, where there is a clear advantage in having a president who is a native son. Locals hope that having their native son as President will encourage local economic development and that the department will be left advantaged by the president’s policy. As a point of comparison, Nicolas Sarkozy never really benefited from any favourite son effect in his urbanized and economically integrated department, the Hauts-de-Seine – in fact, Hollande won 49.5% of the vote in Sarkozy’s native department. Like Chirac, Hollande’s favourite son effect was not confined to Corrèze. It also boosted the natural left-wing vote in surrounding departments, forming a perceptible halo in regions of the Lot, Dordogne, Haute-Vienne, Creuse, Puy-de-Dôme and Cantal which border Corrèze.

Hollande won excellent results in traditionally right-wing departments of the southern Massif Central. He won Cantal, the core of the old pompidolie and a right-wing stronghold for ages, with 51.8%. He took 54.4% in the Aveyron, traditionally a conservative department. In Haute-Loire, he won 51.4%. In the Lozère, which had for ages been a rock-solid conservative stronghold (outside the solidly left-wing Cévennes), Hollande lost by a mere 45 votes to Sarkozy. In all of these cases, Hollande was boosted both by very strong performances in the core left-wing bases of these departments, but also by fairly impressive gains in urban areas and in evolving, secularized regions. The Catholic heartlands of the Aubrac, Pays d’Olt or Margeride remained solidly behind Sarkozy, but Hollande scored impressive results in the demographically evolving Plateau of Saint-Flour, Puy-en-Velay plateau or the Grands Causses (Aveyron).

Hollande was triumphant in all but a small handful of France’s major urban centres. This is the logical culmination of a series of profound transformation in French urban politics.  The rural-urban divide and the urban physiology of France have really been turned on its head in the past decades, a shifting reality which has obviously carried deep political repercussions. To talk of a rural-urban cleavage in traditional terms is increasingly misleading in France and other Western countries. Traditional rural areas no longer form a sizable share of France. Areas which may appear, misleadingly, to be “rural” are in fact exurban or suburban areas, where locals do not work in small businesses in their commune of residence but rather commute distances of varying length to their place of work in another commune, oftentimes a major city but also smaller, mid-sized towns which serve as employment centres and focal points of economic activity and social exchange.

In France’s largest cities, the old opposition between bourgeois and proletarian neighborhoods has been progressively weakened albeit not entirely erased. Wealth is no longer a phenomenon constricted to the old central bourgeois neighborhoods, while socio-economic changes since the 1970s mean that the old white working-class, properly speaking, has generally abandoned their old neighborhoods of core urban areas in favour of the suburbs or exurbs. The bobo phenomenon has been a direct result of gentrification of old working-class quarters, a process which is most pronounced in Paris (especially the old working-class east side) but also in other large cities including Lyon, Marseille or Lille.

Rising property prices in core urban areas and old immediate suburbs have meant that those who can afford to live in those municipalities tend to be fairly well-off, highly educated middle-class professionals. At the same time, however, the urban core often tends to have a lower median income than its immediate surrounding suburbs. It is not a population of extremely affluent conservative bourgeois who make up the bulk of the city’s population (example: Paris), but rather younger, middle-class professionals/CSP+ who are fairly well-off – not “filthily rich” (as some would say!), but not poor or deprived either.

Large urban areas also tend to have a younger population, a result of a number of factors including desire for a hip-bobo urban lifestyle, proximity to centres of education and research or a population of younger middle-class professionals and cadres. The lifestyle, culture, values and social makeup of most urban areas in France and around the world tend to be favourable to the left: a mix of secularism, urban progressivism, environmentalism and pro-Europeanism are all urban values which move urban areas, in general, closer to the left.

In France, core urban areas cannot and should not be the subjects of generalization. The reason why Paris voted for the left is quite a bit different from the reasons for which Brest or Le Havre voted for the left. Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, Toulouse, Nantes, Bordeaux, Caen, Rouen, Nancy and Dijon are examples of well-off, highly educated middle-class major cities. Marseille, Montpellier, La Rochelle, Poitiers, Brest, Orleans, Strasbourg, Reims, Metz, Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Tours or Amiens fall in an intermediate category – not as affluent, still fairly educated and professional, but with some starker social contrasts. Le Havre, Mulhouse, Roubaix, Cherbourg, Saint-Nazaire and a lot of the cités populaires surrounding Paris are urban areas but have retained a far more traditional, lower income, working-class or industrial makeup despite social changes.

The core, “socially integrated” urban areas of France generally soundly rejected Sarkozy. It is reflective, generally, of two similar and concurrent factors. Firstly, a strong anti-Sarkozyst mood amongst cadres moyens, salaried middle-classes, public and para-public sector employees of all levels and other fairly socially integrated and well-off middle-classes. As the exit polls showed, the “professions intermédiaires” went against Sarkozy by very significant margins. For these voters, a mix of poor economic conditions and unpopular government policies alongside Sarkozy’s chilling right-wing populist turn were likely the main reasons for their strong backing of Hollande. Secondly, employees and lower-level salaried middle classes also tended to reject Sarkozy – especially so in the inner suburbs and the old socialist suburbia. Economic concerns (job loses, purchasing power etc) likely played major roles in these voters’ rejection of Sarkozy.

The famous Red Belts, working-class municipalities with a strong Communist political tradition which form the proletarian hinterland around cities such as Paris, Lyon, Grenoble or Rouen have been changing as well. The Red Belt in the Parisian petite couronne is no longer a centre of heavy industry and large concentration of ouvriers – take a look at the figures for ouvriers in places such as Montreuil (obviously) but also Nanterre and you’ll be surprised at how low or average the numbers are. Some of these buckles of the red belts are gentrifying (Montreuil), but in general they have retained a low-income character but transformed into blighted “inner cities” (to use the term in an American sense) with large immigrant or ‘ethnic’ populations, employed in low-paying service, public or manufacturing jobs. In these type of suburbs, which voted solidly for Royal in 2007 and even more solidly for Hollande in 2012, the candidate of the PS was carried by immigrants, poorer working poor whites (employees) who have retained their family’s political traditions, lower-level public or para-public employees (hospital staff, teachers etc) and some young educated professionals in the gentrified “integrated” inner suburbs.

In the cités populaires of the Parisian basin (Mantes-la-Jolie, Trappes, Garges-lès-Gonesse, Argenteuil, Les Ulis, Grigny, Evry, Corbeil-Essonnes etc) Hollande performed extremely well. Royal had already done quite well in the cités populaires in 2007, where it had been noted that she had been particularly good at motivating young first-time voters of foreign ancestry. In 2012, it appears as if Sarkozy lost most of the gains he had made with poor whites in these areas in 2007 based on his strong appeal on issues of immigration or lower middle-class populism. They returned to their left-wing roots.

On the other hand, Sarkozy performed well in the outer suburbs and exurbia. Marine Le Pen had done extremely well in most of the so-called périurbain subi in 2012, the beneficiary of populist anger by lower-income voters pushed further and further out from the main urban cores by rising inner city property prices and hurt by mortgages, debts and rising fuel prices, and concerned by immigration and insecurity. Sarkozy’s record is probably not as popular as it is in Neuilly-sur-Seine, but his conservative rhetoric likely proved appealing in these areas, where he had done fairly poorly in the first round. His campaign image as the steady hand against the “dangerous change” embodied by Hollande. Sarkozy’s right-wing populism, based, as in 2007, on la France qui se lève tôt and “le vrai travail” were probably much closer to the bread-and-butter concerns of these voters, who do not usually tend to be public or para-public employees in large numbers. Furthermore, Hollande’s centre-left brand of consensual social democratic policies mixed in with left-wing anti-Sarkozyst fodder might have proved less appealing to these voters. At any rate, exurbia has always been a difficult region for the PS. A lot of inhabitants are not employed in the public sector, and they generally tend to frown upon the job security and “fat cat unions” for civil servants which is allegedly defended by the PS. They might feel at odds with the PS’ perceived stylistic bias towards left-wing educated urban middle-classes, the public sector but also immigrants.

Hollande’s performance in working-class areas were far more tepid. While he did join the old left-wing bases of the north, Picardy, Seine-Maritime, Ardennes and Lorraine (lost, in good part, by Royal in 2007) with his core base in the southwest and centre, his comparative performance was actually fairly unimpressive. He did well in rock-ribbed left-wing working-class locales such as the northern mining basin, the Ardennes, the Longwy/Moselle industrial conglomeration, industrial Rouen and Le Havre and the Montbéliard-Sochaux-Héricourt area. But, as we shall see, his performance in these areas often tended to be weaker than Jospin’s results in 1995 – when, must it be noted again, Jospin lost nationally. Sarkozy still dominated throughout right-wing working class areas including, notably, parts of Moselle and Alsace.

Compared to the traditional map of the right, Sarkozy’s map retains its ‘eastern bias’ (first noted in 2007) and its strong correlation (in part) with the general map of the FN in the first round. This map proves that the UMP’s general base has shifted rightwards from the days of chiraquie in 1995-2002 and that a good part of the right’s support in the runoff comes from first round FN voters. Helped by his semi-nationalist populist cultural and stylistic conservatism, Sarkozy held up fairly decently in a lot of eastern France. The second round, thus, was clearly a serious affair without much ‘revolutionary’ votes by angry right-wing voters or protest votes. Even if these voters might have felt let down or disappointed by Sarkozy, they returned home, at the end of the day, to their traditional ideological home. He still lost a sizable share of the most impressive gains he had made in 2007, but he held up well in parts of the grand est and the Rhône Valley/Riviera in the southeast which might have been assumed to prove fairly resistant to Sarkozy based on his record, despite their political conservatism and their electoral penchant for the right.

Historical Geographic Comparisons

Map 3: % change in the runoff PS vote, 2012 vs. 2007 (map generated by Geoclip OVF)

The first comparison we can draw is the most obvious one: the 2007 runoff. Royal won 47% of the vote that year as the PS candidate, Hollande won about 51.6% of the vote this year, inferring a national swing of +4.6% in the PS’ favour. Of course, a map of Hollande’s comparative gains (mostly) over Royal is a mirror image of Sarkozy’s loses (mostly) since 2007, which eliminates the need for a second map. A very dark blue denotes cantons where Hollande did worse than Royal in 2007, varying shades of blue indicates cantons where he gained by less than his national average and varying shades of orange-red indicates cantons where he gained by more than his national average.

Obviously, Hollande’s most impressive gains came from the Limousin and his semi-native Corrèze where he improved significantly upon Royal’s performance. This clearly shows an added regional effect for the native son, given that the chiraquien anomaly in traditionally left-wing Corrèze had been almost entirely eliminated by Royal in 2007. Hollande added a favourite son effect to the left-wing base in the Limousin and its neighboring regions. The Lot, Dordogne, Puy-de-Dôme and Cantal are quite telling in this regard. Hollande’s gain vis-a-vis 2007 were extremely heavy in cantons which are immediately adjacent to or fairly geographically close to Corrèze, while his gains remained large though less so the further out you get from Corrèze. The general halo effect is rather interesting.

Another region which is particularly striking is the northern Cotentin and the Cap de la Hague in the Manche. Hollande had already performed very well there in the first round, leading some to come up with the hypothesis that the popular PS/hollandais mayor of Cherbourg, Bernard Cazeneuve, might have boosted the Hollande candidacy in the region. However, I must admit my reluctance to accredit such major regional swings to the work of popular local officials who are big backers of a candidate. Cazeneuve might have had an effect, but I believe that accrediting the result there to his work and popularity is just another incidence of an unfortunate trend to give simplistic and boneheaded answers to complex questions.

The Cotentin is an interesting case. Cherbourg is a working-class Socialist stronghold, and Hollande generally improved by fairly nice margins over Royal in a lot of left-wing working-class areas like Cherbourg. But it is not really a city with a huge suburban influence and hardly the type of urban area which should see a sudden influx in left-leaning suburban families. The Cap de la Hague is also noted for the nuclear power industry at Flamanville, home to one of France’s most famous nuclear power plants. There is a controversial project in the works to expand the nuclear power plant (the EPR project) at Flamanville. Both Hollande and Sarkozy favoured the project, though Hollande wants to close a nuclear power plant in Alsace and reduce France’s dependence on nuclear power. Sarkozy has kind of dragged his feet on the EPR case, so there might be local frustration at the slow pace of the project? Unemployment is high but not excessively so, therefore it is tough to envision particularly profound anti-Sarkozyst anger in a region which, while not as Catholic and hence conservative as the Avranchin and the south of the department, is fairly right-wing.

Elsewhere, the pattern of gains are a bit more patchy. The mining belt of the Nord and parts of the Pas-de-Calais’ mining belt are perceptible. Sarkozy lost heavily in a traditionally working-class and left-leaning part of the Aisne which is east of Laon and south of Saint-Quentin, which notably includes Tergnier, a strongly left-wing cité cheminote. These strong Sarkozyst loses also extend into neighboring parts of the Oise and Somme. Another industrial basin, Montbéliard-Sochaux-Héricourt in the Doubs and Haute-Saône are noticeable. Sarkozy had done quite well in this working-class and usually left-leaning Socialist region in 2007, but Marine Le Pen had done well throughout this declining industrial basin in the first round. Another struggling working-class area where Sarkozy did poorly in the runoff is the Saint-Dizier area in the north of the Haute-Marne.

A general pattern of stronger Hollande gains can be observed in a number of left-wing working-class or industrial areas in eastern or central France. Notably: from Digoin to Autun (in Saône-et-Loire), the ardennois industrial basin, Rouen and Le Havre’s proletarian hinterland, Creil-Montataire (Oise), Dunkerque, Calais, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Maubeuge, the stéphanois mining-industrial basin (including Firminy; Loire), Commentry (Allier), parts of Nièvre, Vierzon (Cher) and Saint-Junien (Haute-Vienne).

He also gained considerably in semi-proletarian, semi-working poor impoverished suburbia or “populaire cities” including Dreux (Eure-et-Loir), Montargis (Loiret), Roubaix/Tourcoing (Nord), Chenôve (Côte-d’Or), Villeurbanne, Vénissieux, Vaulx-en-Velin, Bron (Rhône), Fontaine, Échirolles (Isère), Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), the entire 93, the bulk of the 94, parts of Val-d’Oise (Sarcelles, Garges, Goussainville, Argenteuil, Cergy), Meulan (Yvelines), Grigny/Evry/Corbeil-Essonnes (Essonne) or Savigny-le-Temple.

In the first case, Sarkozy likely had an unusual populist appeal to the white working-class which was traditionally left-wing (remember: Ipsos in 2007 found that 12% and 10% of PCF and PS sympathizers respectively voted Sarkozy in 2007 over Royal), but lost these gains in 2012 for fairly obvious reasons. In the second case, Sarkozy likely appealed to poor whites and lower middle-class whites in these poor and fragile suburban areas which could otherwise have voted FN. Sarkozy had already been a particularly bad candidate for places like the 93, but this year he apparently lost not only the immigrants and visible minorities but also the petits blancs (a term referring to ‘poor whites’/WWC).

Hollande also did quite well, compared to Royal, in a few isolated/mountainous rural cantons where Mélenchon had, in the first round, taken a fair share of traditional PS votes. Did Mélenchon motivate a new, formerly abstentionist electorate and Hollande managed to keep them motivated? Or perhaps the gains in the Basque Country, the Ariège, Pyrénées-Orientales, parts of Aveyron/Lozère, eastern Ardèche and the Monts-d’Arée (Finistère’s solidly left-wing mini-mountains, including the Communist stronghold of Huelgoat) speak to a local concern about the decline of public services in rural areas, regional economic stagnation/decline and the “hollowing out” of the state in those isolated rural areas. Some of these mountainous regions, not all of which are traditionally left-wing (the Basque Country and eastern Ardèche for example) have also suffered from rising local unemployment due to factory closures (especially in parts of eastern Ardèche, hit hard by deindustrialization as of late). But if that was entirely the case, wouldn’t the Vosges have denoted itself by a big swing to the left given its economic troubles and recent job loses?

Where did Sarkozy resist best? Throughout Alsace, with the exception of Strasbourg and Mulhouse, he held up remarkably well and even gained compared to 2007 in a handful of cantons in the Bas-Rhin (seemingly most of the Protestant cantons, but also – ironically – some pretty populaire/ouvrier caché ones too). Even in Moselle, where the UMP had performed like the plague in the 2010 regional elections, Sarkozy’s vote held up very well – losing heavily only in Metz and the metallurgical Moyeuvre-Grande/Fameck/Florange/Gandrange area. In the conservative working-class areas around Forbach, Freyming, Stiring and Carling there were no strong loses for Sarkozy (besides Forbach and parts of Saint-Avold). A similar story in Meuse and parts of Meurthe-et-Moselle. Despite the strong incidences of a far-right semi-protest vote in the first round in a lot of these areas, a lot of first round FN voters – despite being fairly populaire sociologically – came back to the Sarkozyst fold. Another good example of voters “eliminating” in the runoff, opting for the least worst option (for their views) or finally voting for the candidate of their ideological tradition.

In the wealthy countryside of the Sundgau, Champagne, Beaunois (côte viticole of the Côte-d’Or), Chalonnais, Maconnais, Bresse (Ain), Dombes (Ain), Beauce (Loiret) and Sologne (Loir-et-Cher); the Sarkozyst vote held up well. The same phenomenon is observed in more urban affluent areas (Neuilly, Limonest, Meylan, Annecy) and the well-off resort towns (Trouville, La Baule, Les Sables, Royan, Arcachon, the Var/Alpes-Maritimes, ski country). A far more understandable phenomenon. Of all types of voters, those who are most well off are probably those who are the least alienated from the Sarkozyst style of politics.

A final region where Sarkozy’s vote showed the strongest resistance are some of the Catholic Christian democratic lands (inner west, continental Brittany and legitimist Morbihan, Savoies, Flanders, rural Pas-de-Calais, Lyonnais). How can we interpret this performance? The most likely explanation is that Sarkozy had already performed fairly poorly for a right-wing candidate in a lot of those areas (except Savoie and the Lyonnais) in 2007, and that the runoff left had already started taking in almost all the centre-left humanist votes it could, leaving a Bayrouist rump which is far more centrist/centre-right in its political orientation. It could also reflect a stronger overall performance by Sarkozy with the Bayrou/centrist vote, the remaining rump being fairly conservative in temperament and thus perhaps more resistant to Hollande’s ambitious change/anti-Sarkozyst agenda. Add to this list the Deux-Sèvres, where Hollande did not lose votes compared to Royal’s native daughter performance in 2007 but still did not gain as much considering Royal had started hitting the ceiling with her native daughter boost.

Map 4: % change in the runoff PS vote, 2012 vs. 1995 (map generated by Geoclip OVF)

The second interesting exercise is to compare Hollande to Lionel Jospin in 1995. Overall, Hollande did 4.2% better than Jospin had in 1995 (he lost to Chirac, taking 47.4% of the vote). We could expect that, like with the 2007 comparison, on a 4% swing, Hollande would have gained on Jospin by varying amounts in this seventeen year period. Is this the case? Far from it.

The map is aesthetically pleasing, with some beautiful patterns and uniform blocs appearing. A clear east-west divide appears: east of an axis defined by the cities of Le Havre, Meaux, Lyon and Perpignan, Jospin – who overall lost the 1995 election – generally did better than Hollande in 2012 – who won the election. Hollande’s ‘loses’ were most pronounced in traditional proletarian areas: the Nord-Pas-de-Calais’ emblematic mining basin, Picardy, most of the ardennois industrial basin, good parts of Lorraine’s two main industrial concentrations, the Haut-Rhin (Cernay, Saint-Amarin, Mulhouse), the Saint-Dié area, Montbéliard-Sochaux, parts of Nord-Isère, Savoie’s Maurienne valley and most of the Marseille industrial waterfront. These results show that while Hollande might have done significantly better than Royal in some working-class areas, he did not come close to match the numbers posted by even a defeated Socialist candidate in 1995!

In these and other regards, the places where Jospin performed better than Hollande are quite eerily similar to those areas where the FN does best. In addition to the bulk of these aforementioned regions, you can add the rest of coastal PACA, the Mediterranean riviera in the Languedoc, the Rhône valley, the Garonne valley, parts of the greater Parisian basin (Eure-et-Loir, Eure, Oise, Aube) and the centre (Loir-et-Cher). In these cases, there are demographic factors at work: population growth along the Mediterranean thanks to seniors and retirees settling in or exurban growth in the outer reaches of the Parisian megapolis (but also in the Garonne valley and outer Toulouse); but also more political factors: rising concern over immigration and security in most of these regions, and of course a strong FN vote.

Let us look at the flip side of the coin: where did Hollande improve the most on Jospin’s performance? Three main areas:

Firstly, the “greater hollandie” – my new name for Hollande’s Corrèze and the favourite son halo effect it has created; mixed in with gains also coming from Christian democratic/Catholic country (Lozèere, Aveyron, Cantal, Haute-Loire). In Tulle, he did a full 36.2% better than Jospin – admittedly, it was the right which had a favourite son halo out of Corrèze in 1995!

Secondly, in western France, strong gains throughout the old Christian democratic/Catholic country. Notice, for example, how Hollande gained a lot in the bocage vendéen, eastern Morbihan, continental Brittany, the Choletais in Anjou, the north of Poitou and the bocage normand but did not gain as much (or even lost) in the plaine et marais, the Baugeois or the Sarthe. We will come back to the reasons for this shift when we look at our final comparison map. In the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hollande benefited from a strong “Christian democratic shift” in his favour coupled with a local Bayrouist effect, whereby Bayrou’s native son voters have become far more inclined to vote for the left and follow their leader’s political shifts.

Finally, Hollande gained quasi-universally in urban areas. A few paragraphs above, I described the new makeup of France’s major cities. As a result of shifting demographics which were previously outlined, the main cities have progressively shifted left. The urban effect is huge in Paris (+15.8% – Chirac had a second native son effect in his “other” political base), Lyon (+6.2% – the map is wrong, given that the official results for Lyon in 1995 have been inversed by the useless Interior Ministry), Lille (+9.2%), Grenoble (+11.9%), Strasbourg (+9.2%), Caen (+10.2%), Rouen (+11.4%), Rennes (+10.2%), Nantes (+11.3%), Brest (+10.9%), Bordeaux (+13.2%), Poitiers (+12.4%), Toulouse (+10.7%), Montpellier (+13.8%), Nancy (+12%), Orleans (+10.2%) and Saint-Etienne (+12%). But it is not only confined to those regions. Almost all the isolated “red dots” (showing gains for Hollande) on the above map are urban areas!

Map 5: % change in the runoff PS vote, 2012 vs. 1981 (source: Le Figaro.fr)

The final relevant comparison we can draw up is Hollande against Mitterrand in 1981. Nationally, Mitterrand won the 1981 election with barely more support than Hollande (51.76% vs. 51.64%). A superficial image of overall stability? Indeed! At a local level, there are some huge shifts. Le Figaro drew up a map of a 2012-1981 comparison at a very detailed (communal?) level, which is far more useful than a departmental comparison. Its colour scale could be improved, but it is a very useful map.

The map is amusingly close to the 1995-2012 map, which proves that the most significant shifts in the electoral map happened in the last seventeen years of this thirty-one year gap with Mitterrand’s election to the presidency in 1981. Once again, we clearly see the gains in Auvergne/Massif Central/”greater hollandie“; the gains in the west and the gains in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

In the first case, the favourite son explanation can only be correct to a certain extent. 1981 is a better comparison point than 1995 because there was no definite favourite son effect coming out from Corrèze in the runoff. Chirac’s native son voters had not voted for Giscard is disproportionate amounts, and Corrèze voted for the left as it traditionally had in the past. Indeed, on the map on the left, you will notice that the deepest shades of red are not found in the Limousin. Rather, they are found in the southern Massif Central and Puy-de-Dôme. Giscard got a small favourite son boost out of his native Puy-de-Dôme, which shows up in this map. The strong gains registered by the left in the Aveyron, Cantal (especially the monts du Cantal and Saint-Flour plateau), the Haute-Loire, Lozère (notice the lack of gains in the Cévennes but huge gains in the Margeride – a total +9.4% for the PS in the department) and in the haut and moyen Vivarais (Ardèche) all are the result of the “Christian democratic shift”.

This same shift is most visibly shown in the west. The two departments with the sharpest trend to the left were the Ille-et-Vilaine (+9.9%) and Finistère (+9.8%). The Deux-Sèvres (+9.7%), Manche (+9%), Mayenne (+7%) and Maine-et-Loire (+6.4%) also feature prominently on the list of strongest left-wing gains. At a more micro level, it is important to note where the left’s strongest gains came from – the Catholic regions – the Léon, eastern Morbihan, eastern Ille-et-Vilaine, the bocage angevin, the bocage poitevin and the bocage normand. Far less impressive gains from the traditionally republican plaine poitevine, the Baugeois, Sarthe, Perche (Oise), Auge (Calvados) and more modest gains in central Brittany. The Catholic effect is, of course, picked up in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (especially the Basque Country) but also – amusingly – even in the Pays de Caux, Flanders, Bas-Rhin and parts of Moselle.

The obvious cause: secularization. The religious cleavage remains important, but the structure of the religious cleavage has changed dramatically as voters move away from Catholicism and towards irreligious secularism. This trend has generally gone hand-in-hand with urban growth in a lot of the aforementioned regions. Brittany in particular has moved out of its stereotypical isolation and poverty to become an economically successful, urbanized and educated region. Urban centres such as Rennes or Nantes, cities which the PS started winning in 1977, proved to be the epicentres from which the New Left, driven by moderate social democracy rather than class-struggle Marxism, and influenced by the Christian left tradition, would expand its wings as cities grew, suburbs expanded and isolated clerical rural areas turned into demographically evolving regions. Since Mitterrand’s election in 1981, the left has become far less “scary” for voters of Catholic tradition. The old boogeyman of the Socialist left being a child-eating red atheist monster has died off.

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, secularized voters of Catholic upbringing 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 or the Sarkozyst frontiste-appealing right-populism and weird nationalism.

On the other hand, with the notable exception of the Garonne valley, most of eastern France lying east of Le Havre-Meaux-St Etienne-Perpignan shifted to the right over the course of the last 31 years. A lot of explanations in this case, which can also be useful in explaining the patterns in the 1995-2012 map as well.

The biggest shifts to the right all took place along the Mediterranean coast: Gard (-8.7%), Bouches-du-Rhône (-8.9%), Alpes-Maritimes (-9.9%), Vaucluse (-10.7%) and the Var (-11%). A process driven by major demographic changes. Since 1981 (the process had already begun at that point; Giscard did better in 1981 than in 1974 in places such as the Var), the coast has seen a decline of traditional rural socialist traditions (the Var rouge is almost dead, Vaucluse’s old republican traditions are barely perceptible, the rebellious Radical-Socialism of the Languedoc is dying off) and traditional industries (small mining, small-scale wine producers, cooperative farms in rural areas, end of shipbuilding in La Seyne, industrial decline around Marseille). In return, it has seen its population boosted by a huge influx of retirees and seniors, the bulk of whom are either wealthy or very conservative or oftentimes both. An old left-leaning white working-class vote has been replaced by a vote of petits blancs (poorer whites: petite bourgeoisie, lower middle-classes, retired working-class, employees) who are concerned about immigration and security or a more bourgeois conservative vote (from big landowners hiring migrant workers: Vaucluse, or anti-immigration/anti-criminality white retirees and old pieds-noirs along the Riviera). Similar factors can explain the shift in the Nord-Isère, counterbalanced by an opposite shift in the south around Grenoble and the neo-rural mountainous areas.

In other working-class concentrations, such as the Oise, the NPDC mining basin, Ardennes, Aisne, Doubs/Haute-Saône/Belfort, Haut-Rhin and Saint-Dizier; the left has also taken a bit of tumble compared to 1981. 1981, if not 1978, marked the beginning of the decline of the “working-class culture” and the rock-solid 70% vote for the left from the working-class. Mitterrand’s election was followed by a tough period of disillusion with the left from the working-class, hit the hardest by the industrial decline and spike in unemployment which accompanied Mitterrand’s first term. As the PS slowly shifted from the neo-Marxist rhetoric it had long used, even in its SFIO days, towards a social democratic rhetoric closer to that of the SPD in Germany or Labour in the United Kingdom, the working-class vote started shifting away and exploding. Voters felt that the left had abandoned its roots, and they fell out with Mitterrand in large part due to economic decline and a rise in immigration and crime.

The most noted aspect of the end of the “working-class culture” in France was the FN starting to gobble up the support of a good third of the working-class. However, a lot of observers have laid down the FN’s gains with the working-class in the context of a broader right-wing shift in this electorate. The theory goes that the stronger FN vote is only a spin-off result of a broad, general shift to the right observed in the working-class electorate. Rising unemployment, unequal economic decline, differing responses to immigration and crime has led to an “explosion” of the working-class vote, with all ties and bonds holding this electorate together being blown apart by these forces. Carmaux (Tarn) can no longer be counted on to vote quasi-identically to Vénissieux or Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (Nord). This map could give some credence to this theory.

A final pattern of left-wing decline perceptible in this map is the result of outer suburban and exurban growth. This is most striking in the Oise, the southern Aise, parts of Seine-et-Marne and Aube and the confines of the Eure/Vexin Normand; but it also explains part of what is going on in the Garonne valley, northern Haute-Garonne and Nord-Isère. Exurban growth is hardly favourable to the left, as it may tend to tumble old rural socialist strength or old proletarian concentrations (parts of Oise, most notably), but also because the population growth is not of a kind usually receptive to the left.

Vote transfers

Below is an attempt at a geographic analysis of vote transfers between the first and second rounds. This is not a very scientific or perfect analysis, but it is a fairly accurate way of easily looking at the regional variations in vote transfers. Basically, the point is to try to compare the “theoretical” base of a candidate and his “actual” result.

Map 6: % difference between the “actual” and “theoretical” Hollande vote (map generated by Geoclip OVF)

For Hollande, the map compares Hollande’s actual result to the total of all first round far-left and left-wing candidates, to which a third (33%) of Bayrou’s vote and a sixth (17%) of Le Pen’s vote is added. This, of course, does not take turnout variations into account and rather amateurishly assumes that all those who voted for a non-PS left-wing/far-left candidate in the first round voted for Hollande: reasonable, but perhaps not 100% accurate.

Overall, the “theoretical” base of Hollande would have been 49.8%, a result which is only 1.8% below what he actually won. The main lessons we can take out of this map:

Mélenchon and “other left” first round voters were, overall, extremely reliable. Indeed, the strongest gains compared to the theoretical national base of 49.8% replicate a part of Mélenchon’s first round map: the old Communist strongholds of the Berry, Bourbonnais, parts of Limousin and Charentes; the unique mélenchoniste mountainous socialism of the Pyrénées, Cévennes and pre-Alps; the old proletarian communism of the north and Picardy; western Brittany and of course the Red Belt in the 93-94. If Hollande underperformed in the first round, it is almost certainly not because Mélenchon’s voters proved to be particularly fickle and unreliable voters. This is hardly surprising.

Bayrou’s voters are another story. This calculation counted only a third of Bayrou’s vote in each individual canton, which is the share of Bayrou’s vote which is assumed to have gone to Hollande in the runoff (averaging Ipsos and Ifop results). In a handful of regions, the theoretical vote proved to be higher than the actual Hollande vote, indicating a clear counter-performance/underperformance on Hollande’s behalf. In the haut-bocage vendéen, the Choletais, the vitréen of Ille-et-Vilaine and parts of Mayenne (cantons coloured in light green) we can safely say that Bayrou’s voters tended to transfer their votes disproportionately to Sarkozy. A similar phenomenon is likely at play in the Aubrac in the Aveyron or the Jura plateau in the Doubs, though turnout shifts could explain things as well. We touched on this point in our comparisons above, with Sarkozy’s vote in the west having shown the strongest resistance in regions where Hollande underperformed or had mediocre transfers from Bayrou.

I repeat the theory I had laid out. In 2007, Bayrou’s vote, even in these conservative regions, was likely boosted by a anti-Royal centre-leftist element which transferred well to Royal in the runoff. This year, that vote shifted back to Hollande by the first round, giving Bayrou an electorate which was likely far closer to the centre-right if not the right overall. For these small-c moderate conservative voters, Hollande’s fairly ambitious agenda might have provoked some fear, and led to a “legitimist”-type vote for the incumbent President.

In other regions, there is also the appearance of poor transfers from Bayrou voters. This is most visible in the Yvelines, Hauts-de-Seine, outer Val-de-Marne and parts of Val-d’Oise; all cantons where the theoretical vote proved to be higher than the actual Hollande vote. This is the likely result of fairly affluent, well-off bourgeois centre-right voters who did not like Sarkozy’s right-wing populism in the first round but who, fairly naturally, transferred their votes to Sarkozy, who is after all the candidate closest to their beliefs and political tradition. The Yvelines, Hauts-de-Seine and Oise confirm this assumption: where did Hollande’s vote fall quite a bit short of the theoretical vote? Neuilly, Saint-Cloud, Boulogne-Billancourt, Le Chesnay, Versailles, Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Senlis and Chantilly… This is confirmed outside of Paris too: Marcq (Lille), Lyon’s northern suburbs, Meylan (Grenoble) and Haute-Savoie.

Bayrou’s voters proved to be more left-inclined in most of Brittany (including conservative Léon), Normandy, parts of the Massif Central and especially in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Bayrou’s native son comes, in part, from traditionally republican or left-leaning regions, thus a transfer to the left is natural. In parts of the Basque Country, however, his voters also transferred solidly to Hollande. Perhaps a result of a mini-regionalist phenomenon, given how Sarkozy seems to be unpopular with the small but potentially electorally significant regionalist community?

Le Pen’s voters did not transfer to Hollande in large numbers, but we assumed a scenario where a sixth of her voters did (which is roughly what happened, according to Ipsos and Ifop). Unsurprisingly, FN voters in PACA, Rhône-Alpes and Alsace-Moselle proved to have the weakest transfers to Hollande. We are, after all, dealing with what is predominantly an electorate with strong right-wing political traditions and identification and, in part, an electorate which is more boutiquier and petit bourgeois than a purely working-class/working poor electorate. In the Var and Alpes-Maritimes, the FN draws votes from fairly middle-class whites who are concerned about immigration and crime, and whose vote is not necessarily a “screw them all” type of protest vote. In the Vaucluse, the FN draws a politically conservative/reactionary vote which is not a “screw them all” vote either.

In the Lyonnais and Ain, mixed in with poor transfers from Bayrou’s voters as well, the périurbain and petit bourgeois electorate the FN grabs proved reticent to Hollande. The périurbain vote in the greater Paris showed marginally better but still quite mediocre transfers overall. Finally, in Alsace, the obliteration of sorts suffered by Hollande is the double whammy coming from poor transfers from a traditionally Catholic, semi-regionalist centre-right Bayrou electorate and a conservative, localist and lower middle-class/rural populaire FN base drawn in good part from the traditional right.

In Moselle, we do note some not-too-shabby transfers (likely from Marine) in the Saint-Avold/Forbach area and strong transfers (likely more from the left) in the metallurgical conglomeration north of Metz. However, the main breeding ground for gaucho-lepénisme this year as in past years was Picardy and the NPDC. While good transfers from Mélenchon’s voters is a big part, the very strong (+6-9%) transfers registered in the mining basin and parts of Aisne and the Somme must have in part from gaucho-lepéniste voters. A working-class electorate, with left-wing traditions, which voted for Marine Le Pen in the first round (often for reasons other than immigration/crime, often as a protest vote) but which opted to return to its left-wing roots in the runoff, further boosted, perhaps, by deep disgust with Sarkozy.

As our look at the Sarkozy transfers will show, Poitou-Charentes and other regions of the inner west and southeast might have had a small gaucho-lepénisme phenomenon at work too. In these parts, the FN vote was probably boosted by an added CPNT/”hunters” element which had not been present in 2002 for the FN. The CPNT vote in these regions, usually high, was often far more left-leaning than the conservative hunters vote in the Somme estuary. It represented a rural protest vote, but one still anchored in local left-wing traditions.

Map 7: % difference between the “actual” and “theoretical” Sarkozy vote (map generated by Geoclip OVF)

For Sarkozy, the map compares Sarkozy’s actual result to the total first round vote for Sarkozy and Dupont-Aignan, to which 55% of Le Pen’s vote and two-fifths (40%) of Bayrou’s vote is added. These numbers are in line with the observed transfers from both of these candidates. Again, this, of course, does not take turnout variations into account and rather amateurishly assumes that all those who voted for NDA in the first round voted for Sarkozy: reasonable, but perhaps not 100% accurate.

The theoretical vote on this basis is fairly low: only 42.47%, which means Sarkozy outperformed his theoretical base by a full 5.89%. The map is shaded differently to reflect this result: in blue, all gains (only 61 cantons had a higher theoretical vote than actual vote) below the 5.9% average, in red-orange, all gains above the 5.9% average. This means that, obviously, the other left-wing candidates did not see their voters split 100% in Hollande’s favour – Sarkozy like pulled 5-7% of Mélenchon’s voters and 10% of Joly’s voters. It also means that general turnout shifts generally played out in a way favourable to Sarkozy.

Le Pen’s general map is visible, but not entirely: only in coastal PACA, Gard, Hérauult, the Garonne valley, the Rhône valley, Rhône-Alpes, the grand est, Alsace and Oise. In general, throughout the Alpes-Maritimes, Var, western Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône and the eastern Gard, Nord-Isère, the Lyonnais, Ain, Haute-Savoie, parts of Savoie, Alsace-Moselle, Aube, Marne and the périurbain lointain around Paris had some strong transfers to Sarkozy, from which we can infer – generally – that Le Pen’s voters in those regions generally showed good transfers to Sarkozy. In addition, we can likely assume, from the above map, that FN voters in coastal resort areas (Vendée, Royan, Arcachon, Pyrénées-Orientales, Hérault, PACA) transferred well to Sarkozy.

It is interesting to note that the regions where the FN’s first round base proved the most “Sarkozyst” generally replicate the map of the Le Pen vote… in 1988. Interesting, but not especially weird. The FN’s vote in 1988 was beginning to “popularize” in sociological terms, but it remained much more sociologically right-wing and of higher socioprofessional status than it does today. This year, the traditional boutiquier, lower middle-class, petite bourgeoisie and périurbain fractions of the wider FN vote posted strong transfers to Sarkozy. These electorates are, in general, more sociologically right-leaning and their vote for the FN is not entirely a “screw them all” type of vote, as explained above. Certainly the FN vote in PACA and parts of Languedoc and Rhône-Alpes, partly influenced by the pied-noir factor, is quite unlike the newer FN vote in places like Hénin-Beaumont where the FN vote is reflective of a wider social malaise and exasperation.

The old “poujado-frontiste” type of vote (boutiquier, lower middle-classes, petits blancs) has always been if not anti-left-wing at least very resistant towards the left. The wider périurbain vote remains one of the left’s main weaknesses. Finally, despite Sarkozy’s weakness with the working-class as a whole, working-class milieus of conservative tradition (often because they are Catholic, badly unionized or historically hired local workers) showed no particular allergy towards a Sarkozy vote in the runoff: note especially the Yssingelais, Moselle, Cluses-Scionzier or Cernay-Saint Amarin. For many, their Sarkozy vote might not have been a pro-Sarkozy vote rather than an anti-Hollande vote, but the result is the same as far as raw votes are concerned!

On the other hand, Picardy and most of the NPDC (but also parts of Ardennes, the leftist working-class parts of Lorraine, parts of Saône-et-Loire and some leftist banlieues populaires) showed no particular love for Sarkozy. Indeed, the theoretical vote was only marginally lower than the actual Sarkozyst vote, which reflects that Le Pen’s voters generally posted less impressive transfers to Sarkozy. Once again, this is hardly surprising. The bulk of these areas are working-class areas with PS or PCF traditions, and the birthplace of gaucho-lepénisme in 1995. While gaucho-lepénisme properly defined (left-wing voters voting FN in the first round but then for the mainstream left in the runoff) is no longer as prevalent as in the 1990s – a lot of gaucho-lepéniste type voters prefer to sit out the runoff nowadays – it does remain an important phenomenon.

To conclude, Sarkozy’s gains from the FN can be assumed to have been greater in areas which are overall rather right-leaning, and lesser in areas which are overall left-leaning.

Bayrou’s voters in eastern France showed stronger transfers to Sarkozy than their counterparts in Brittany or greater hollandie. In Alsace, Moselle, Marne, the Lyonnais and Haute-Savoie parts of Sarkozy’s large gains over the theoretical right-wing base must have come from Bayrou voters. In Alsace, there appears to be a pretty strong correlation between Sarkozy’s gains in the runoff and Bayrou’s strongest results in the first round. In these conservative regions, a mix of wealth and traditional conservatism likely shifted these first round MoDem voters towards the right in greater numbers than in Brittany, where the centre and the PS have often coincided in a common Christian left upbringing.

Bayrou’s voters in the clerical and extremely right-wing regions of the Aubrac and Margeride likely shifted in larger amounts to Sarkozy as well, but in these regions, a spike in turnout likely proved beneficial to Sarkozy as well (as it did in parts of the Parisian basin). Similarly, lower turnout might have played to Sarkozy’s benefit in parts of the inner west (especially the rural Mayenne, the Choletais, the eastern confines of Brittany, the haut-bocage and marais breton), where the (likely) abstention of fledgling Bayrou voters might have resulted in a more right-wing runoff electorate. However, it is hardly unreasonable to assume that Bayrou’s voters in these regions – all regions with a monarchist and clerical Catholic tradition – might have transferred in a way favourable to Sarkozy as well.

In contrast, Sarkozy struggled in Lower Brittany, a region where Bayrou’s centrist votes were likely socialized in an environment heavily influenced by a Christian left/PSU tradition. In the Limousin, Charentes, Berry, Nivernais, Bourbonnais and the Pyrénées; Sarkozy struggled a lot. Bayrou’s few voters in the greater hollandie were likely attracted to a native son like Hollande. However, his vote share was already quite low in the general region. It is possible that with Le Pen’s voters in these rural areas showing particular resistance to Sarkozy, the right-wing vote in the first round was already approaching Sarkozy’s realistic ceiling in a regional context marked by an extremely strong native son effect which certainly broke old left-right barriers, just like Chirac’s native son effect in the same region was not just a right-wing vote.

In Bayrou’s native Pyrénées-Atlantiques, his own favourite son-influenced voters had bad transfers towards Sarkozy, just like in 2007. Whatever the particular causes, the result of this is quite shocking. The Pyrénées-Atlantiques, long the most right-wing department in Aquitaine and a historically conservative department, gave 57.1% of the vote to Hollande – meaning that Hollande did better in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques than in Gironde, Landes, Gers or Aude!

The Future

The immediate next step, in electoral terms, remains the legislative elections – held in June. Since the shift in the electoral calendar in 2000, the legislative elections have been synchronized to take place after a presidential election. This reform has made the presidential election the election, while reducing the stakes of the legislative elections by making them fairly dependent on the results of the presidential election. The obvious hope was to solidify the presidentialist nature of the regime and prevent any further cohabitations. Thus far, voters have proved their legislators correct in their original assumptions. In 2002, the newly created single party of the right – the UMP – won a very large absolute majority on its own, while the PS saved face and began the painful rebuilding after the April 21 rout. In 2007, President-elect Sarkozy’s UMP won the first round easily but voters in the runoff turned the cards around and the vague bleue was more of a blue ripple. The UMP retained its majority, the first legislative majority to win reelection since 1978, but lost a significant amount of seats to the left.

Based on this recent history, the media narrative of these elections is that the left – either the PS alone or the PS alongside its allies – will win the legislative elections. Indeed, it would be quite irrational and downright bizarre on the part of the French electorate to elect a PS president but turn around a return a UMP legislature a month later. The cohabitation idea is not very popular, and the general mood will be to give to President Hollande the means of carrying out the policies he was elected on.

However, early polling has shown a surprisingly small gap between left and right overall. Similarly, the first post-May 6 trends have not indicated a huge honeymoon boost for Hollande or demotivation on the right. I maintain that Hollande will get a short-lived honeymoon, which will likely become apparent after May 16 (when the government is named) and when a tiny sense of optimism and hope sets in until mid-June at the earliest. Voters have likely remained in a presidential mindset, and they will start turning off from politics and elections in a few days time.

Indeed, abstention will be much higher in the legislative elections than the 19-20% abstention registered in the presidential election. In 2007, turnout reached an absolute low at only 60%. While extremely low turnout (below 50%) is unlikely, turnout is unlikely to exceed the high 60s let along the 70% mark. It could yet be a tad higher than in 2007, which seems to be the overall prediction, though I would hardly be surprised if it ended up at 2007 levels or even below the symbolic 60% mark. For the right, the risk is that, following Sarkozy’s defeat, its base is demotivated by an election with low stakes and which seems lost before the battle began. A similar situation had emerged in the 1981 legislative elections, where a close presidential result was followed by a huge PS wave in the snap elections. Hollande will not get a Mitterrand ’81 majority in June, because the euphoria, optimism and hope of changer la vie has not accompanied his election.

The level of abstention is important because the runoff ballot is open to all candidates who have won over 12.5% of registered voters in the first round (unless the seat is filled by the first round). The shock-and-awe idiocy of journalists proclaiming over 350 triangulaires (three-way runoffs) with the FN were based on the low-abstention presidential results. In reality, there will probably not be any more than 50 triangulaires in the best case scenario for the FN. At best, the FN can only hope for 3-4 seats in the best of cases. However, the FN is in a situation to play dangerous tricks on the UMP. In a few constituencies, the FN can hope to place second ahead of either the UMP or the PS and knock them out of contention for the runoff. In other constituencies, there remains a risk for a triangulaires de la mort scenario for the UMP, a la 1997. The FN could very well spoil the UMP and the right’s chances in a handful of constituencies, either through three-way runoffs or poor transfers in the runoff.

The issue of UMP-FN deals has thus emerged, promising headaches for the UMP. Unlike in the past, it seems as if both the UMP and FN’s base favour such deals. The UMP leadership will not sign any formal national deals with the FN, though it seems willing to resist the pressure for traditional fronts républicains with the left to oppose the FN. However, in a handful of local cases, the UMP and FN could end up in agreement on a deal of mutual support in the runoff, agreements similar to traditional PS-PCF deals whereby the party which places second would endorse the one which places ahead of it.

We will come back to the legislative elections and the fun it promises, but for the sake of time, we can work on the assumption that – as things currently stand – the left will win, though the PS will lack an absolute majority on its own and will need the votes of its mini-allies (EELV, PRG) and possibly its picky junior allies (FG/PCF).

In these elections, the left will be “led” by Hollande’s new Prime Minister, the PS mayor of Nantes and longtime parliamentary leader of the PS group, Jean-Marc Ayrault. Ayrault is a competent, tested, experienced and well-known parliamentarian and politician who has the added advantage of having fairly good ties with Germany. He is probably a safe choice for Hollande, which will neither be a yes-man or an overshadowing larger figure, or a potential thorn in the side. The composition of Ayrault’s first government will be interesting to follow. Lots of PS politicos and barons have lined up like good little kids, eager for candy. Like Sarkozy in his cabinets, Hollande will also need to take heed of his party’s various factions and internal families.

President Hollande has a tough presidency ahead of him. The European economic situation, combined with France’s huge public debt, will likely prevent the implementation of the left’s electoral promises (as always). The general mood in France is one of abject pessimism. Voters are resigned towards the high likelihood of some sort of austerity at home, and a lot believe that France could potentially end up like Spain or – gasp – Greece. Thus, the mood which accompanies the election of the second PS president of France is quite unlike the one which accompanied the election of the first PS president, in 1981. The changer la vie hope, euphoria and optimism of 1981 is for the history books. The reaction to Hollande’s election seems to be a widespread “meh” or at best a dismissive “he can’t be as bad as Sarko” impression. The fact that the election was more Sarkozy’s defeat than Hollande’s victory and that Hollande owes his victory to anti-Sarkozysm will certainly come back to haunt the PS and Hollande in the near future, once voters forget Sarkozy and shift their judgement to the new incumbent.

Hollande’s victory was generally read outside of France as an “anti-austerity” vote, alongside the anti-austerity wave in the May 6 election in Greece. In reality, however, austerity was probably a secondary factor behind a local, “franco-french” factor: anti-Sarkozysm. At any rate, it is unlikely that Hollande will single-handedly bend Angela Merkel’s apparent leadership in the EU and the European financial crisis. He will, above all, face important domestic economic and fiscal problems. Before long, he will likely be compelled to adopt austerity policies in some form or another. He will likely attempt to tie any austerity measures with some “tax the rich” measures (likely more symbolic than anything else), and his fiscal policy might be more inclined toward job creation and economic growth than debt/deficit reduction. However, only time will tell what will come of all this.

In the meantime, the UMP will be looking to heal its wounds. Sarkozy’s strong performance on May 6 (comparatively) makes the rebuilding process a bit less tenuous, but the likely absence of Sarkozy from active party politics in the near future opens a new situation. It lays the groundwork for the explosion of longtime private tensions within the UMP and the right as a whole, which will likely soon erupt in open civil war. The UMP’s current leader, Jean-François Copé, is intent on running for the presidency in 2017 and, in the meantime, shaping the UMP into his personal political machine for 2017. He has played his cards well, and he is a rather Machiavellian political figure, who has proven to be politically apt and skillful. However, there is a strong anti-Copé current in the UMP, which could coalesce behind outgoing Prime Minister François Fillon. The expectations seem to be for a Copé-Fillon battle royal, though internal politics in the UMP are not that simple. Fillon is probably the most prominent of the anti-Copé current, but it remains to be whether he can calm the ambitions of the likes of the “young wolves” Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet or Laurent Wauquiez; but also Alain Juppé.

Yet, the implosion of the UMP remains unlikely, for reasons tied to laws on party financing or the division and dispersion of the centre-right/centre. The UMP will be the place where the reconstruction of the right takes place (with the FN playing a key role as an ‘observer’ of the situation), while the centre will find itself condemned to continued marginalization and “little brother” status behind the UMP.

Only the future will tell what comes of this. Thanks to all readers for reading my posts on the French elections, and tune back for continued number-crunching and analysis of the upcoming legislative elections in the coming weeks and month.

France 2012/May 6: Liveblogging the second round and other May 6 elections

Join me for a special live blog of the second round starting at 18:00 local time (noon on North America’s eastern seaboard), featuring comments on turnout, the trends, the expectations, the exit polls at 20:00 and then the official results as they flow in. I’ll also be opening the board to discussion and taking all your questions related to the election, the results and what’s coming up next. There will be some coverage of elections in Greece, Serbia and Schleswig-Holstein as well.

To access the liveblog, please click here

Thank you for joining us!

France 2012

The first round of presidential elections were held in France on April 22, 2012. The President of France, the head of state in a semi-presidential system, is elected for a five year term which is renewable once. France uses a traditional runoff system, where a candidate must win 50%+1 of the votes in the first round to be elected outright, or else the top two candidates in the first round proceed to a runoff held two weeks later. France has held eight direct presidential elections since 1965, and in none of these eight contests has a candidate ever won an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first round.

France is notorious for quickly turning sour on the presidents it has just elected, yet since 1965, only one presidential election – 1981 – has resulted in the defeat of an incumbent president. However, this year, circumstances are a bit different for incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was first elected in 2007.

The incumbent

Sarkozy, a talented and ambitious politician, had his eyes fixed on the presidency since his political career began in earnest in the mid-1980s. The presidency has only been won by politicians who are talented and skilled at manipulating their political opponents and rivals within their own party, and by politicians who are willing to betray old friends and drive over old enemies if getting to the top job in the country requires that. Being popular is not good enough, as countless unsuccessful candidates have learned throughout the years. Leading in polls a year out from the election, furthermore, has never proven successful.

Nicolas Sarkozy had a good mentor, Jacques Chirac, his predecessor who served twelve years as France’s President and had built himself a stature as the big boss and top predator of the French right whose ability to destroy opponents was second only to that of his left-wing frenemy, President François Mitterrand (1981-1995). Sarkozy maneuvered his way to political prominence similar to how Chirac had risen to the top in the early 1970s, but he made a few mistakes along the way.

Jacques Chirac, who had structured his own political party (the Rally for the Republic or RPR, a neo-Gaullist party) in 1976 as an electoral machine to get himself elected president, had ran and lost in two previous presidential elections by 1995 (in 1981 and 1988). After his 1988 defeat, Chirac’s leadership of the RPR faced criticism from young reformers, though Sarkozy had not been one of them. After the right-wing mega-landslide in the 1993 legislative elections, in which President Mitterrand’s unpopular Socialist Party (PS) was handed an unprecedented slap in the face, Jacques Chirac thought he was promised the presidency in 1995. He constructed his own little plan through a deal with Balladur, his old ally, who would become Prime Minister while Chirac would become President in 1995. However, encouraged by his strong standing in matchup polls against Chirac and the left, Balladur broke the deal and announced his own candidacy in addition to Chirac’s long-standing candidacy. His budget minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, turned into one of Balladur’s most loyal supporters within Chirac’s own RPR. Sarkozy, who served as Balladur’s campaign spokesperson, might have taken his support of his candidate a bit too far. When Balladur was defeated by the first round, Chirac, who eventually became President, vowed to take his revenge on “the traitor”, Sarkozy.

Between 1995 and 1999, Sarkozy endured what is often called in French a traversée du désert (crossing the desert). Out of cabinet, and shunned by the Chiraquiens in the RPR’s machinery, Sarkozy was relegated to his homebase as mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, the wealthiest city in France. However, in 1999, two years after the defeat of Chirac’s RPR in the snap legislative elections of 1997, the RPR was in a pitiful state. The Élysée Palace, the president’s residence, had a hard time attracting talented politicians to take the helm of the president’s party. In 1998, Philippe Séguin, the leader of the RPR who maintained cool relations with Chirac, suddenly resigned the party’s leadership and the top spot on the RPR list for the 1999 European elections. By necessity more than by choice, Chirac and his right-hand man, Dominique de Villepin, were compelled to call on Sarkozy. However, just as Sarkozy was emerging from the desert, he fell into quicksand. In the 1999 European elections, the RPR-DL list for the European elections, led by Sarkozy, placed a distant third with only 12%, being distanced by a small margin by a dissident right-wing Eurosceptic list – the Pasqua-Villiers tandem. Sarkozy was unable to take charge of the party, and his political career was seriously threatened following the humiliation he suffered in the Euros.

In 2002, Jacques Chirac, freshly reelected to the presidency by a stroke of luck – he faced the controversial far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen and not his Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the runoff – proceeded to hatch his idea of a “united right”. Since the 1970s, the French right had been divided between two big parties, allied for electoral necessity but sworn rivals in other cases. Chirac’s RPR represented the Gaullist tradition, whatever “Gaullism” meant by then after having been associated with Reaganite neoliberalism in the 1980s but populist fracture sociale rhetoric in 1995. On the other hand, the Union for French Democracy (UDF) was a fairly unstructured partisan coalition uniting the liberal tradition (including former President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing) and the centrist/Christian democratic tradition (including Balladur’s education minister François Bayrou). The UDF was not the RPR’s sidekick, but it never became the electoral machine the RPR was (lack of Chirac-like leaders, disunity) and was to be contented by its status as the perennial junior partner in any right-wing government. The idea of a “united right” gained support within the UDF, including with the liberals (who had left the UDF in 1997 to form DL) and some centrists. Over the opposition of a rump UDF led by Bayrou, Chirac was able to carry through with his ambitious plan when he hatched the UMP – which would become the Union for a Popular Movement, the “single party” of the French right.

Chirac did not envision for the UMP to be the vehicle of his sworn enemy, Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2002, Chirac had named Sarkozy as Interior minister, a position in which he gained a reputation as a tough-working, straight-speaking law and order politician. Sarkozy gained notoriety, popularity and standing from his role as Interior minister – and later during his short stint in 2004 as Minister of Economy and Finance. In 2004, the president of the UMP and Chirac’s close ally Alain Juppé was forced to step down from the leadership of the UMP following his indictment in an old case of corruption in the RPR. Sarkozy understood what this meant, and immediately jumped on the opportunity to run for the presidency of the UMP, despite Chirac’s dead set opposition to the prospect of his enemy taking over “his” party, which would have driven “his” candidate - Juppé – to the presidency in 2007. When Chirac failed to find a serious rival to Sarkozy, he decreed that he would compel Sarkozy to resign from cabinet if he won the leadership of the UMP. Sarkozy won the UMP’s leadership easily over token competition in November 2004, and resigned from cabinet. He proceeded to turn Chirac’s party into Sarkozy’s party.

Following the government’s defeat in the 2005 European constitutional referendum, Chirac was forced to renege on his previous statements about how the leader of the party could not be in government. But Chirac would not bow entirely to Sarkozyst pressure. He did not name Sarkozy as Prime Minister in replacement of the battle-worn incumbent, Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Instead he named Dominique de Villepin, the old right-hand man and lifelong civil servant. Still, Sarkozy became the number two behind Villepin in the new cabinet, taking office as Interior minister once again.

Villepin was Chirac’s last-ditch attempt to block Sarkozy’s irresistible accession to his office. At first, it appeared as if Villepin would be a serious rival to Sarkozy, who suffered a succession of bad news in 2005. But Villepin would find himself destroyed by the curse of Matignon (the PM’s residence). The Clearstream scandal, aimed at Sarkozy, backfired on Villepin, as did an unpopular youth employment scheme (the CPE). Ironically, Chirac saved Sarkozy’s pre-candidacy by not naming him to Matignon in 2005. Chirac did not seem to understand the curse of Matignon, whereby no incumbent Prime Minister has ever been subsequently elected President (Chirac88, Balladur, Jospin). Being Prime Minister might be a political reward for close friends – that is how Chirac saw it – but in practical reality it is perhaps best used as a cemetery for political rivals – which is how Mitterrand understood it.

At any rate, having failed to buoy a Villepin or any other non-Sarkozy candidacy to the presidency in 2007, Chirac was compelled to acquiesce to Sarkozy’s crowning as the UMP’s presidential candidate and forced to endorse his old enemy, though obviously with no great enthusiasm. In the 2007 campaign, Sarkozy proved that, like the old man Chirac, he was an able and talented politician. Running as the candidate of the party of an incumbent president with an approval rating lower than Nixon during Watergate, he quickly ran away from the ‘old days’ of the Chiraquie and presented himself as a change candidate. Viewed as an elitist liberal (in the French sense of the word ‘liberal’) until then, he managed to find a populist appeal to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s voters and working-class voters. His rhetoric about the “value of work”, boosting French competitiveness, lowering taxes in addition to his trademark tough actions against criminality, insecurity, illegal immigration and so forth struck a chord with many voters.

Sarkozy defeated PS candidate Ségolène Royal in the runoff on May 6, 2007 with 53% of the votes, after having successfully crushed the old patriarch of the far-right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in the first round.

However, it may seem as if Sarkozy – like Chirac – is much better suited to winning power than he is to successfully doing something with it. Unlike Chirac, nobody can criticize Sarkozy for inaction. Since 2007, he has been very much of an hyperprésident, parading around with his wealthy friends or his new supermodel wife Carla Bruni, while politically he centralized power in the Élysée Palace in a way not seen since Giscard’s presidency. Sarkozy won flack for his bling-bling ‘unpresidential’ stature, including celebrating his election by eating out with friends at a big restaurant and taking a cruise on a businessman-friend’s yacht. His tendency to speak off the cuff, with his (in)famous casse-toi, ‘pov con! response to a heckler, has not compared favourably to the very presidential and aloof style of politics practiced by all his predecessors including Chirac.

His honeymoon period proved very short lived, ending with the new school year in October 2007. The 172% increase in his own salary combined with a controversial new law (paquet fiscal) which included a tax cap for high earners destroyed his standing with the working-class electorate he had conquered in 2007, leading his critics to denounce his proximity to big money and high earners. He was able to stabilize his popularity in 2008-2009, when he took a leading role in the worldwide financial crisis and his mediation in the Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008. The crisis allowed him to present himself as a safeguard against the economic crisis, and as a world leader in tough times. He did not hesitate to take measures which liberal critics would denounce as statist, such as stimulus spending or bailouts for troubled banks.

In 2009, his popularity started collapsing again. The government was hit by a succession of corruption cases and affaires which seriously weakened Sarkozy, who in 2007 had campaigned on the basis of an “irreproachable republic”. The controversial idea of naming his politically ambitious but not too talented son Jean Sarkozy to head a large public office (the EPAD) in 2009 will probably be looked back on as a major turning point in his presidency, when all hell started breaking loose. It was followed by small corruption cases involving two cabinet ministers, then the Bettencourt-Woerth affair, then the controversial displacement and expulsion of Roms in the summer of 2010, the controversial retirement reform (raising the retirement age to 62, from 6o), and the reminders of France’s proximity to the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia when he was overthrown in January 2011 (right after Sarkozy’s hapless foreign minister had spent her vacations in Tunisia). The left has been vocal in criticizing the countless corruption cases, his tough stance on immigration (removing French citizenship from criminals, linking delinquency to immigration, the Roms affair) which is seen as a political ploy to receive far-right votes or the retirement reform (which polarizes on party lines).

Economic troubles including rising unemployment (almost 10%), a decline in consumers’ purchasing power and a very heavy debt load (over 80% of GDP) have worsened the climate even further. Some of the working-class voters who were part of Sarkozy’s 2007 coalition have been hit particularly hard by the economic crisis, but for some there is an added feeling of betrayal by the President, who promised in 2007 that jobs – such as jobs at a steel plant in Gandrange – would not be lost when they were later lost. For some lower middle-class voters who backed Sarkozy in 2007 on the back of his populist rhetoric, the image of a President who favours his rich friends with tax caps is clearly not what they had voted to get.

From an electoral standpoint, Nicolas Sarkozy clearly aimed to give the far-right FN the “Mitterrand treatment”, that is do with the FN what Mitterrand did with the PCF – turn it from a party winning 20% to a bunch of archaic also-rans winning less than 10%. In 2007, he had managed to win over two in ten of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 2002 voters by the first round and in the subsequent legislative elections, the FN was dealt a nearly fatal blow by winning a terrible 4.3%. Even as Sarkozy’s popularity eroded in 2008 and 2009, the FN failed to reap the benefits of the UMP’s troubles in the 2008 local and 2009 European elections. However, the 2010 regional elections proved to be the FN’s unexpected resurrection, at which point it appeared as if the FN could only go up and Sarkozy’s UMP could only go down. A lot of far-right supporters and some of the lepenistes which had backed him in 2007 felt betrayed by Sarkozy.

Sarkozy’s 2007 strategy was ingenious, but he placed himself into a box which he would find hard to get himself out of once the shine started wearing off for good. In a sense, he got himself into a “damned if you, damned if you don’t” kind of situation. His tough rhetoric in 2007 had won him FN votes, but he lost them in earnest beginning in 2010. His tough rhetoric in 2007 had frightened away some moderate centre-right voters. Once the FN votes started being lost, Sarkozy found himself in a box where he would risk losing the support of his right-wing if he tacked too much towards the centre, while conversely he would risk losing support in the centre if he tacked too much to the right. Ultimately, he chose the latter course and kept tacking right. Anti-Sarkozyst feelings flooded rightwards from the left into the centre.

The opposition

In certain cases, Nicolas Sarkozy’s best asset – until recently – was his opposition. The Socialist Party (PS) has been out of power at a national level for ten years, last won a big national election in 1997 and last won a presidential election in 1988. In 2002, the PS was shocked out of its comfortable little world when its candidate, then-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002) was eliminated by the first round, placing third behind the FN’s Jean-Marie Le Pen. Jospin, who had been a fairly popular Prime Minister during an economically favourable period, had been confident of his ability to not only feature in the final two against President Chirac but also fancied his chances at defeating Chirac, who was a particularly weak incumbent despite the cohabitation scenario (which usually favours incumbent Presidents rather than the incumbent majority) because of a series of corruption scandals.

Jospin’s defeat and shocking withdrawal from electoral politics that April evening proved to be the beginning a tough road for the PS. The party was certainly not as badly off as they had been the previous time they had not featured in a runoff – in 1969 – but they still had a long way to go. However, the PS resisted pressure to revitalize itself through serious soul-searching and was thrust back in a comfortable position which it fancied by voters in the 2004 mid-term elections in which Chirac’s UMP did very poorly. The PS chose to read the good news, trying to forget its own weaknesses: deep internal divisions, made very public by the conflicting egos and personalities of its top echelon. The 2005 debate over the EU constitution revealed these divisions, even though the incumbent leadership led by party boss François Hollande won a large majority at a party congress that same year.

In 2006, the PS once again fancied its chances at winning the presidency when it fell across Ségolène Royal, a regional president who injected a new voice and a breath of fresh air in a party known for its “elephants” (the ‘old guard’). However, Royal, as politically skillful as she was, was still no match for Sarkozy. Though she could compete with Sarkozy well on the terrain of populism, her penchant for bizarre statements and policy proposals or her erratic personality would hurt her during the course of the campaign. A lot of left-wingers felt a bit uneasy about her, especially when she had weird flirtations with right-wing themes or with jingoistic patriotism. Royal was probably the best they could have found, but she lost to Sarkozy by a fairly consequential margin (53-47).

The PS’ knack for factional battles, personality clashes and internal wranglings would hit a climax at the Reims Congress in 2008. The election of the party’s first secretary ended up as a battle between two tough women: Royal and her sworn rival, Lille mayor Martine Aubry. Aubry ended up winning, but by the narrowest of margins (102 votes) in a race marred by voting irregularities on both sides. The image of a divided PS, divided more because of egos and personalities than deep ideological problems, would result in its fairly unexpected thumping in the 2009 European elections when it won distant second, only a few hundreds of votes ahead of a left-wing Green coalition. However, the PS was able to put Reims behind it and began cashing in on Sarkozy’s woes in 2010 and 2011. However, the risk for the PS at this point is its slow transformation into the second coming of the old Radicals, fairly powerless nationally but with a formidable local base of local elected officials (mayors, regional and general council presidents, councillors etc).

From this post, you can go back to all my old posts concerning the PS’ historic “open primaries” of the fall of 2011 which culminated in the nomination of François Hollande. Hollande is a novelty in the realm of presidential contenders: he has never served in cabinet, his executive experience is limited to the local level and he managed to become his party’s nominee at a time when nobody seriously thought he would be the PS candidate. He was obviously helped by DSKgate, in which the early favourite for the PS nomination, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested last May in New York City on counts of sexual aggression in a hotel room. But he surprised those who remembered him from his eleven years as the PS’ secretary-general in which he was fairly competent leader but did not show any special or particular ambition, political talent or drive. A mix of his own skills, his successful campaign and the failure(s) of his opponent(s) all amounted to a comfortable victory in the open primary against the PS’ first secretary, Martine Aubry. The aforementioned posts recount how he got where he is today.

The 2009 European elections saw the emergence of the Greens as a potent political force, potentially posing a threat to the PS’ hegemonic control of the left sustained since the Mitterrand years. The Euros success led to the transformation of the old decrepit Greens into a new party, EELV, which was confident and ambitious. Though its results in the 2010 regionals and 2011 cantonals were not as spectacular, the Greens still remained a much more serious political option and weighed much more against the PS than it had at any point since 1993. However, the Greens likely got too ambitious and opted to play a game too many by putting a lot of its cards on the presidential election. The Greens usually find themselves squeezed in presidential elections, because their most charismatic figures do not run and their hapless candidates find themselves stuck between the PS and the ‘left of the left’.

On the other hand, the Communist Party (PCF) which came out of 2007 with its head held very low indeed found its unexpected salvation in the hands of a charismatic former Socialist cabinet minister, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. His new party formed in the wake of Reims – the PG – allied with the PCF as part of a Left Front (FG) which won the PCF and its allies much better results than those it had become used to.

The French centre has been a constellation of factions, parties, personalities and elected officials since 2007. Since 2002, a small centrist rump of UDF members, led by François Bayrou, had resisted their incorporation in the single party of the right and took an ambitious posture of independence against the UMP. Between 2002 and 2007, Bayrou progressively moved the UDF away from the right and towards the hypercentre (dead-centre). In 2007, Bayrou was able to surge to the heights rarely achieved by centrist presidential candidates since 1965. On the back of anti-system, anti-establishment third way rhetoric, Bayrou surged from 5% to 20% and briefly placed in contention for the runoff. He would eventually fall back down to 18%, which is what he won in April 2007. It was a high water mark for the centre, but Bayrou totally misread his result. Bayrou’s coalition in 2007 was a bit different from the old UDF coalitions. A lot of right-wingers and left-wingers left in the dark by their candidates opted for the centrist option, as did a fair number of fickle socially liberal moderate swing voters. Bayrou read his result as a full endorsement of his policies, rhetoric and political agenda by 18% of voters, and proceeded to overreaction. He decreed the death of the UDF, and its replacement by a new party – the Democratic Movement (MoDem).

In the legislative elections which followed, the MoDem won only 7% of the votes and three seats. The creation of the MoDem as a fully independent centrist party, not allied with the right, did not really speak to the political agenda of the UDF’s incumbent caucus of 30-some members. Those members’ political survival was in many cases dependent on the good graces of the UMP, and their own political views might have been more in line with those of Bayrou than those of Sarkozy but deep down, they remained loyal to the UDF’s roots as a centre-right party. The bulk of the UDF’s incumbents shut the door on Bayrou’s strategy, and founded their own party – the New Centre (NC), allied with the UMP. The NC won 20-some seats, the MoDem won only 3 seats. The centre was thus left with “a party without parliamentarians, and parliamentarians without a party”.

Bayrou’s control-freak and centralist nature within his own party led to a steady outflow of members from the MoDem, which after another bad defeat in the 2009 European elections became a party on life-support propped up by its leader only for the purposes of his next presidential candidacy. At the same time, attempts by other centrists (or centre-right figures) to recreate a united centre fell flat on their face. They didn’t quite understand that creating their own new parties (including, for example, Senator Jean Arthuis’ AC) did not help centrist unity but rather rendered the centre a mish mash of parties, parliamentarians, and egos which nobody could pretend to understand.

The centre came close to finding the man who might have carried a solution to the chronic disunity of the centre since 2007. Jean-Louis Borloo, the leader of the Radical Party, a social liberal ally of the UMP, had been a popular environment minister in Sarkozy’s cabinet but fell out with Sarkozy and the UMP after he saw his prime ministerial dibs crushed in 2010. Borloo proceeded to ally with the NC and smaller centrist party, in the hopes of recreating the UDF of yesteryear. Yet, Borloo’s coalition – the ARES – was almost immediately burdened with its own problems. Firstly, not all Radicals were hot on the idea of distancing themselves from the UMP. Secondly, Bayrou’s MoDem was not involved, which did pose some problems because, despite the MoDem’s pitiful state after 2010, Bayrou still remained a fairly popular and powerful political actor in the centre. Thirdly, the ARES idea was in part dependent on the eventuality of receiving the support of the UMP’s centrist wing – those UMP members who had been members of the UDF prior to 2002. Attempts to divide the UMP and restructure the centre-right along the pre-2002 lines were too ambitious and amounted to naught. Finally, the ARES adventure relied heavily upon Borloo and his candidacy in 2012. The ARES proved stillborn when Borloo backtracked and surprised observers by announcing that he would not run for the presidency. He was the only non-Bayrou centrist with a presence and an ability to perform well in 2012, as the NC’s hapless leader Hervé Morin quickly found out during his short and aborted presidential flirtation.

On the far-right, the 2007 election was the last hurrah for the old patriarch of the FN, Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose peak was in 2002. After Le Pen and the FN’s collapse in 2007, the FN entered its toughest period in years – tougher even than the acrimonious years of division with Bruno Mégret’s dissidence in the late 1990s. The party was nearing bankruptcy, failed to save the sinking ship in either the 2008 or 2009 mid-term consultations and was generally perceived as being in a comatose status. The only bright spot for the party proved to be the solid results won by Marine Le Pen, the old patriarch’s daughter and chosen successor, in her new home base of Hénin-Beaumont, a troubled mining town in the north of France.

2010 proved to be the FN’s rebirth. The party benefited from the collapse of Sarkozy’s image with the far-right electorate and won strong results throughout the country in the 2010 regional elections. The FN rising from the ashes, like the phoenix, proved that Sarkozy had ultimately not been able to deal the FN a fatal blow in 2007, unlike Mitterrand who had dealt the PCF fatal blows in the 1970s and 1980s. After 2010, as mentioned above, the FN went from success to success and the UMP from defeat to defeat. The election of Marine Le Pen to the party’s leadership in 2010 rejuvenated the old party somewhat as she discovered a new appeal to a working-class base discontent with Sarkozysm but still unconvinced by the increasingly moderate PS. Much has been written, perhaps too much, about her ‘transformation’ of the FN into a more respectable and less extremist party or about her new appeal to new electorates. Journalists like to write sensational stuff like that, even though it’s not quite true.

In early 2011, the FN was boosted by ‘shock polls’ which showed her running ahead of Sarkozy in the first 2012 matchups. The party did very well in the 2011 cantonal elections, proving that the surge was real.

The candidates

Ultimately, ten candidates gathered the 500 signatures/endorsements required to run. On the far-right, Marine Le Pen, in the running since 2010 if not 2007. She successfully managed to win the 500 signatures which the FN always complains are hard to get, but she also totally sidelined and silenced the factions of the FN which were unhappy about her leadership. Of course, those folks, led by Carl Lang, never had any serious appeal.

On the right, Nicolas Sarkozy took the traditional route of announcing his candidacy quite late (February 2012). Few people doubted he would, however, not run for reelection. The UMP gives the appearance of being more cohesive and more peaceful than the PS, but that is only because Sarkozy knows how to place a cap and silencer on the internal wranglings behind the scenes. The UMP is just as divided internally as the PS, and its personality and ego battles are just as fierce. Sarkozy, however, has been successful in giving the appearance of a fairly serene party which is united behind him. To an extent it is united behind him, but it is artificial unity maintained by the constraints of power. The early battles over the legislative elections, the most emblematic of which is the fight in Paris between Prime Minister François Fillon and MEP/former justice minister Rachida Dati, are proxy battles for the battles which would be waged within the party if Sarkozy loses (the Fillon-Dati civil war’s battle lines reflect those of a potential civil war within the party).

Also on the right, a lone Gaullist candidate, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, managed to stand. Dupont-Aignan, who left the UMP quite some years ago already, is the leader of a small Eurosceptic “paleogaullist” party called ‘Arise the Republic’ (DLR). DLR has never gained the footing granted to similar predecessors including Charles Pasqua’s RPF or even Philippe de Villiers’ MPF, largely because NDA (as he calls himself) is nowhere near as well known as either of those two retreads. NDA has a conservative but fairly traditional Gaullist (which means, economically, more statist than liberal, and generally Eurosceptic) platform.

Dominique de Villepin, who still has a small base of political support within the UMP as expressed by his party (‘Solidary Republic’, RS), attempted to run, for reasons it seems more related to his old personal vendetta against Sarkozy. In 2010, when his bubble was still fresh, he might have been a half-serious threat to Sarkozy, but became an irrelevancy rather quickly (in part because of Clearstream rearing its head on him). He was unable to gather his 500 signatures.

Ultimately, in the centre, François Bayrou ended up being the “last man standing”. Morin’s candidacy in the lack of a Borloo candidacy was quickly aborted in the wake of 1% polling averages, which would have hurt the NC’s standing against the UMP in negotiations for the legislative elections. The NC ended up backing Sarkozy, as the Radicals did, without much enthusiasm. Corinne Lepage, a former environment minister and an ex-ally of Bayrou (she had already run in 2002), did not gather her required signatures.

On the left, François Hollande was the nominee of the PS and PRG (a small party allied to the PS). Hollande managed to motivate a base which was, in part, rather cool to him. Clearly, his ability to win in May proved to be a major element in his appeal to the left-wing base. EELV nominated Eva Joly, an MEP and well-known Franco-Norwegian magistrate who has a good image in the realm of public opinion but is not a very good politician. Joly had surprisingly defeated the favourite for the EELV nomination, the well-known TV star (a ‘telecologist’) Nicolas Hulot, who was ultimately too ‘impure’ for the party’s base. The FG (the PCF and PG) nominated Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had emerged as the FG’s top icon beginning in the 2009 Euros. Mélenchon faced two rivals in the PCF internal vote, including the little known but locally popular Puy-de-Dôme deputy André Chassaigne.

On the far-left (the ‘Trotskyist far-left’), the 2012 battle will be fought in the absence of the movement’s two main stars: Olivier Besancenot, candidate of the LCR in 2002 and 2007 and Arlette Laguiller, the well-liked candidate of LO in all elections since 1974. Arlette retired from politics, in favour of another woman, Nathalie Arthaud who managed to gather the 500 signatures. Besancenot had managed to transform the old LCR into a new party – the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) – but the NPA failed its first electoral test in the 2009 Euros and Besancenot’s star began to fade with the rise of the Greens and Mélenchon as rivals on the left. Besancenot, a postman in Neuilly-sur-Seine, opted not to run, giving the NPA candidacy to a little known union activist and auto worker named Philippe Poutou, who still managed to win 500 endorsements.

Finally, the surprise candidate of 2012 ended up being Jacques Cheminade. Cheminade, who had run in 1995 but failed to run in 2002 and 2007, is linked to the Lyndon LaRouche’s bizarre political movement, often classified as being far-right in France. Nobody really knows him or what his ideas are (as if anybody understood LaRouchism), but he has become a practical joke for comedians and observers alike who poke fun at the conspiracy theories underlying Cheminade and Lyndon LaRouche’s political views.

You can read more preview materials here and here.

Results and Analysis

Turnout was 79.47% – abstention was low at 20.53%. Many observers had predicted high abstention – perhaps as high as in 2002 (28.4%) because the presidential campaign and the candidates failed to engage and motivate voters in a significant way, and most judged the campaign to be of very low quality. Ultimately, the high turnout surprised almost everybody. Despite most voters feeling that the campaign was bad, the high stakes in this election and the prestige of the position up for grabs likely motivated voters who had considered abstention. The left was able to keep its more abstention-prone base motivated by the lure of defeating Sarkozy. The right prevented demobilization of its base, which was what had happened in the 2010 regional elections in good part.

The geography of abstention reflected traditional patterns. Highest in the overseas department (especially high in non-white areas, like the Kanak areas of New Caledonia), Corsica but also urban areas and more isolated rural areas (including mountainous regions) largely in eastern France. Turnout was low in Île-de-France, where, like in 2002, school vacations are likely to blame. According to Ipsos’ exit poll, it was unsurprisingly younger voters, lower socioprofessional categories (CSP- including manual workers) and low income voters who had the lowest turnout. There were no clear links between partisanship and low turnout, though a quarter of Bayrou’s 2007 voters abstained. UMP, PS and PCF sympathizers had high turnout, but all partisans usually tended to post high turnout numbers. In the 2010 regional elections, a lot more right-wingers had opted not to vote than left-wingers.

The results were:

François Hollande (PS) 28.63%
Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) 27.18%
Marine Le Pen (FN) 17.89%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (FG) 11.10%
François Bayrou (MoDem) 9.13%
Eva Joly (EELV) 2.31%
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (DLR) 1.79%
Philippe Poutou (NPA) 1.15%
Nathalie Arthaud (LO) 0.56%
Jacques Cheminade (S&P) 0.25%

François Hollande came into the first round as the favourite and comes out of the first round as the favourite. He led a smart campaign, despite small ups and downs, and has played all the right cards to win the runoff. Despite being criticized on his left as being too soft and indecisive, and to his right as being wishy-washy and indecisive, his image as a ‘normal’, consensual and moderate candidate has appealed to voters in the centre who were scared away by Nicolas Sarkozy’s tack to the right. Hollande, since day one, has set out to win this election in the centre, by appearing as a low-key consensual moderate who doesn’t give the image of improvising or panicking like Sarkozy. He has skillfully taken on the Mitterrand ’88 mantle, that of a moderate guy behind a “France unie” appeal who stands against the divisive, ideological and sectarian right. Like Mitterrand in 1988, by taking on this image and appeal, he has already positioned himself favourably for the runoff. As a person, Hollande might not win personality contests and his personal image could use some significant improvements on stuff like presidential stature and credibility in foreign relations, but as a candidate he has managed to brush off his weaknesses by staying clear of any traps and controversies and keeping a consensual moderate approach.

His image, adopted from day one, as the “normal president” has been a positive image for him. In contrast to an incumbent known for his erratic temper and his tendency for wild escapades, Hollande’s image as an amiable and congenial provincial ‘notable’ has been a boost for him not only in this campaign but before that during the PS primary. He has remained a safe option for more centrist-leaning voters, evoking consistency and moderation despite his various bouts of left-wing rhetoric during the campaign.

On the other hand, to keep his left-wing base, Hollande also seized unto the mantle of anti-incumbency and specifically anti-Sarkozysm. In the PS primary, his ability to defeat Sarkozy – which his main rival Martine Aubry perhaps did not possess as much – proved to be a major boon. It remained a major advantage for him in the general election campaign, helping keep left-wing voters perhaps uneasy with his wishy-washy softness in the fold. He did keep them satisfied by various short-lived adventures to the left, not hesitating to use more left-wing rhetoric, but overall he kept himself from falling into a box of being too centrist for left-wingers and too left-wing for centrists. As aforementioned, Hollande steered clear of traps and his weak points and instead focused heavily on his strengths. He almost turned himself into the ‘not Sarkozy’ candidate and transformed the election into a referendum on the incumbent president.

In an equal head-to-head contest, Sarkozy is likely the strongest against Hollande on issues such as the debt, reducing the deficit, economic management and presidential stature. Hollande understood that and refused to play that potentially dangerous game. Instead, he skillfully presented himself not as Mr. François Hollande but as Mr. Not-Sarkozy. The incumbent president entered this campaign with some of the weakest approval numbers of any incumbent facing reelection, and feelings of anti-Sarkozysm run very high on the left. For many left-wingers, the main point of this election is defeating Sarkozy and the main motivator is anti-Sarkozysm (rather than, say, Hollande’s personal qualities or platform).

According to Ipsos, 28% of French voters voted they way they did to show their opposition to another candidate, the remaining 72% voted to show their support to their particular candidate. However, a full 38% of Hollande’s voters placed his name in the little envelope to show their opposition to another candidate – no prize for guessing who this other candidate might be – rather than their support to his candidacy.

By placing first, Hollande not only prevented any mystical Sarkobump which might have been the result of Sarkozy placing first in the first round, but he also gained some additional momentum for himself. While their air of inevitability is not necessarily a boon for frontrunners, Hollande is surrounded by a media narrative of inevitability and it will probably take a screw up on his part for him to lose in the runoff.

Nicolas Sarkozy will make the history books: the first incumbent president to trail in the first round. Though his 27.2% of the vote is not awful, by any means (it is way better than Chirac’s result in 2002, for starters) but Sarkozy had banked a lot on placing first in the first round with a result closer to his 2007 result (31.2%). Sarkozy seems to be a big believer in some mystical theory whereby placing first in the first round is a game-changer, when it never has been. Yet, for him, the incumbent, to place second is not good news. He is probably in a worse spot than Giscard in 1981, which is an election which carries many similarities to this current election (as does 1988). The election is for all intents and purposes a referendum on his presidency and his personality as a political leader, and that is not something which plays to his advantage. Despite his strengths, his weaknesses are many and they are, for many voters, far more important than any of his strengths.

Looking back, Sarkozy likely opted for the wrong strategy. As described above, his 2007 strategy inadvertently placed him in a box of his own making, where he was vulnerable both on his right if he went too much towards the centre and vulnerable on his centre if he tacked too much to the right. In this campaign, Sarkozy clearly opted to tack right. By focusing his campaign on themes such as immigration, criminality, security, authority, responsibility and traditional values he was clearly aiming to appeal to FN voters who had fallen out with him since 2010. As his advisers have said, the Sarkozyst strategy was a campagne au peuple, or, in other words, a populist campaign aimed at winning “with the people”.

At the outset, the Sarkozyst strategy was fruitful – in part – for the UMP candidate. He progressively gained support in the first round, clearly at the expense of Marine Le Pen. However, he was unable to maintain his momentum as the official campaign – and equal air time for all candidates – began. His mini-surge began to peter out and he slowly lost some support to Marine while Hollande retook a very narrow lead in the first round. Sarkozy’s strategy of a right-populist campaign had two problems. Firstly, it was a first round strategy. Understandably, Sarkozy might have been concerned about his viability in the first round, so instead of playing a Giscard ’81 or Jospin ’02, he seemed to focus both on Hollande – his likely runoff opponent – and Marine Le Pen (perhaps indirectly). It was successful, but it remains a first round strategy because runoffs are usually won in the centre – only 1981, 1995 and 2007 are exceptions to the rule.

Secondly, the populist route is best taken by non-incumbents. Mitterrand’s 1981 campaign was not quite the populist route, it was rather a fairly left-wing anti-incumbent strategy not entirely repeated by Hollande this year. However, Chirac in 1995 and Sarkozy himself in 2007 were both successful in their populist strategies in those respective elections because they were not incumbents and were rather anti-incumbents. Jacques Chirac positioned himself, backed by the fracture sociale and nascent anti-EU populism, against the incumbent and establishment Édouard Balladur and later against a Lionel Jospin still too tied to the incumbent Socialist head of state. In 2007, as described above, Sarkozy clearly positioned himself as the anti-incumbent with his rhetoric of a rupture with the dusty past. The populist route has never really been tried by incumbents, except perhaps Chirac in 2002 – but he was not really the incumbent in that case. It is hard to position yourself as a populist, playing on the division of France between “elites” and “people” (as exemplified by the 2005 referendum and skillfully played on by Sarkozy in 2007), when you are an incumbent. Even harder when you are an incumbent naturally tied to your record, like it or not. Sarkozy’s record, on issues such as the bouclier fiscal makes him appear far more as the candidate of the wealthy elites of Neuilly-sur-Seine than of the steel workers of Gandrange. The poor economy, not of his own making, but still a disadvantage for him, gives populism fertile ground but not when you are the incumbent who has presided over a degradation of purchasing power and employment.

To use a weird swimming analogy, Sarkozy often gave the appearance (during the campaign) of being trapped in the deep ocean, not knowing how to swim around sharks and constantly – and desperately at times – improvising a strategy to get out of shark-infested waters. In sharp contrast, Hollande went by swimmingly, avoiding the shark-infested waters which would have been dangerous for him. The result is that while Sarkozy managed to keep his head above water in the end, he is no closer to shore than he was before the runoff. Hollande is much closer to shore and remains the top dog in our swim meet.

Marine Le Pen was the other big winner of the night – if not the ‘real’ winner. With 17.9% of the vote, she has won the highest result for the FN in any national-level election. She won more raw votes and a higher percentage of the vote than her father did in 2002 when he qualified for the runoff (16.9% and 17.8% respectively). However, she did not repeat her father’s shocking performance of 2002, which means that her performance will not be remembered as being as remarkable as her father’s 2002 result. Her result this year confirms that Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the runoff in large part because the vote that year was exploded beyond recognition and the left in particular had seen its voters extremely divided between the various candidates of the left. This year, given a far more cohesive vote around the PS and the presidential majority, she did not come close to challenge either Sarkozy or Hollande for a spot in the runoff as she could have done in 2011.

Marine Le Pen was underestimated by all pollsters. Ipsos estimates that she gained a net 1.1% due to additional mobilization and a net 1.8% due to gains from other candidates – including 0.6% from Sarkozy, 0.5% from Hollande and 0.4% from Bayrou and Mélenchon.

Like her father in 2002 but unlike in 2007, Marine was underestimated by all pollsters though not by a very significant amount. In the final stretch, it appeared as if Marine’s campaign was running of steam. After the Toulouse tragedy, her campaign seemingly realigned on the traditional themes of the FN – security and immigration – rather than sticking true to the ‘new’ themes of republicanism, secularism, anti-Islamism and anti-establishment populism which had done her good in 2011 and early 2012. That decision to realign the campaign along her father’s favourite hunting grounds was controversial internally. Yet, her result showed that voters responded differently than the media to her final days of campaigning. Polls did pick up a slight recovery in her numbers in the final week or so of the first round campaign, kind of correlated with Sarkozy’s post-announcement momentum petering out in her favour. Some voters who had been on the fence between the incumbent and Marine likely opted for the latter vote.

Marine’s strong result will, first and foremost, assert her as the quasi-uncontested leader of the far-right. It is hard to remember, but her ascension to the top of the party which had since the late 1990s been, for all intents and purposes, her father’s party, was not without difficulty. She was not the uncontested heir to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s legacy. Already in 2009 she had managed to crush the nascent anti-Marine far-right led by Carl Lang and Fernand Le Rachinel, similar to how her father was able to electorally destroy Bruno Mégret’s MNR in the late 1990s and 2002. In 2010, she skillfully trounced her main rival, Bruno Gollnisch, with a bit over two-thirds support and slowly but definitely shaping the FN machine and institutions in her favour. With her strong result, she will be the uncontested leader of the FN and of the far-right for years to come.

Marine Le Pen’s fantastic result is a major failure for Sarkozy. In 2007 it was clear that his strategy was to marginalize and fatally wound the FN similar to how Mitterrand had been able to marginalize and wound the PCF in the 1980s. Besides proving that Mitterrand remains the most skillful and Machiavellian figure of recent French politics, Marine’s result is a clear black eye for Sarkozy. He was able to target the FN vote in the 2007 election(s), but in the long term he was unable to keep it either because of an economic situation not of his own making or because of his own mistakes. Some of Sarkozy’s policies including, again, the bouclier fiscal or the EPAD/Woerth-Bettencourt affairs were frankly boneheaded moves by Sarkozy and his entourages which proved that Sarkozy and the UMP still misinterprets the FN vote and still believes that the FN vote is that of 1984-1988. Even then, his style and policies were not even fair game for the type of FN voter he had done best at picking up in 2007 (the boutiquier-type vote). Because of her strong result, she will plunge the right back into the 1983-1988/1998 era where the question of what to do with a rising far-right became a key concern for all mainstream right politicians and a factor of division between the various clans of the French parliamentary right.

For the FN as well the question of its political future will be up for discussion. Even though Marine Le Pen/Louis Aliot are probably more hungry for real political power than her father probably was, Marine Le Pen – despite cozying up with former mégretistes including Nicolas Bay and even Steeve Briois – remains very much loyal to her father’s old ni-ni line (neither left nor right) and will not be likely to change her rhetoric away from “they’re all the same” (UMPS) to “perhaps the right is the least worst option”. The FN clearly is not looking towards the future with the same view as Wilders’ PVV or even the FPÖ. It remains very much a protest-oriented party which balks at any idea of Mégret-like formal deals with the right. Given the recent experience of the PVV or the past experiences of the FPÖ, this strategy is probably the one which remains the most politically lucrative for the FN.

Much has been said about how Marine Le Pen’s vote probably reflects rejection of other candidates and protest more than anything else. Apparently those who actually voted for her see things differently. Ipsos’ poll showed that while 35% of her voters voted for her to express rejection of another candidate (the second highest, only Hollande’s 38% – described above – is higher) you still have 65% of her voters who said that they opted to vote for her to express their support for her candidacy. Furthermore, 67% of her voters cited “meeting their concerns” as one of the two reasons they voted the way they did – and this number is above both the current national average (47% of all voters voted they way they did because their candidate met their concerns) but also above her father’s own results in 2002 and 2007 on that factor (he got 52% both years, still above average). We will have more later about the new face of her electorate.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon ended up raking in a fairly disappointing performance. With “only” 11%, he still has won a significant and satisfying result, but it is much less than what he could have expected by reading the polls and the trends. Of course, his surge has ended in a peak at 15% and his momentum had started to fade away in the final week of the campaign. However, he could yet have hoped to win something closer to 12-14% even if his chances of placing third diminished in the final days as he lost and Marine gained. It is likely that Mélenchon lost some swing votes to Hollande by way of the vote utile phenomenon and more proletarian voters to Marine Le Pen. According to Ipsos, he lost a net 0.8% to abstention and a net 2.6% to other candidates, comparing their last poll with the result. Ipsos estimates that he lost most (0.9%) to Hollande, but also not insignificantly to Poutou/Arthaud (0.4%), Le Pen (0.4%), Joly (0.3%) and even Sarko (0.3%).

In a long-term perspective, Mélenchon’s result is still significant and positive both for his political future and that of his political avatar, the Left Front (FG). From his personal point of view, while it is significantly below his expectation, such a result solidifies his place as the quasi-leader of the “left of the left” and gives him some not insignificant political capital to use against his rivals on the “left of the left” which, in this case, are not the Trots of the far-left but rather the rank and file of the PCF. It is clear that Mélenchon does not care much for the continued existence of the PCF, though attaching himself to the PCF, like Oskar Lafontaine attached himself to the PDS in Germany, is politically and electorally beneficial for him because of the weakness and irrelevance of his own political party (the PG). Mélenchon’s objective is also clearly that of his friend Lafontaine: to slowly take over the PCF and keep its electoral machine to recreate a German-like Left Party suited to his political ambitions and desires.

Like many of his critics assumed he would, Mélenchon played the good soldier despite his very apparent frustration and anger on April 21. He quickly endorsed Hollande and told his supporters to vote on May 6 as if they were voting for him. His reluctance to pronounce the PS candidate’s name has become the butt of many jokes and comments, but Mélenchon has still played the good soldier. It is clearly not in his immediate political interest to lump Hollande and Sarkozy together (which is something the old PCF would never have done either…). While Mélenchon remains adamant about the fact that he refuses a government deal with the PS if Hollande is elected, he will face some internal wranglings on that matter from the PCF, which has a significant base of local officials who are much closer to the PS and recognize that they owe their spots, in part, to the PS’ good will. In other words, Mélenchon’s aim of transforming the FG/PCF into an emulation of Germany’s Die Linke will prove fairly difficult. His political capital is significant and the PCF will be quite grateful to him for inadvertently resuscitating the old machine, but he will face significant resistance from within the PCF apparatus. Even the apparently loyal mélenchoniste boss of the PCF, Pierre Laurent, probably allied more with Mélenchon for the positive effects he would have on the PCF’s empty coffers by way of public financing following the legislative elections.

In the eventuality of a Hollande presidency, the FG will likely prefer to play the role of the PCF between 1988 and 1993 rather than return to a 1997-2002 gauche plurielle type of setup. The FG will be eyeing the legislative elections in June above all else, where the PCF’s fairly decent resistance at a constituency level gives it a sizable base to start from and which it will hope to add to in the eventuality of a left-wing sweep. But it must also prevent that a vague rose really is a “pink” rather than “red” wave like in 1981, when the PS swept the legislative elections but in which the PCF took quite a tumble. Afterwards, Mélenchon and the FG’s interests remain best served by a position similar to “constructive opposition” given that the austerity measures which will likely be forced upon the new government and the country would significantly weaken the FG if it was in a gauche plurielle-type formal coalition with the PS. Mélenchon’s pipe dream is something similar to what is happening in Greece: a left-wing government forced to take unpopular measures, leading to an explosion and ‘atomization’ of the main left-wing party’s vote and a major strengthening of the “left of the left”.

Mélenchon’s success in large part stems from his ability to unite the dispersed “left of the left”, which had been exploded in 2002 and 2007 between a negligible PCF and a much more attractive far-left (Laguiller and Besancenot). Though assuming that all of those who voted for the far-left in 2007 voted for Mélenchon is far from being entirely accurate, given the diverse and nontraditional compositions of those electorates in both 2002 and 2007, he still rallied a fair share of Besancenot and Arlette’s ‘personal voters’ from 2002 and 2007. The combined “left of the left” weighed 9% in 2007 and 13.8% in 2002. In a long-term view, Mélenchon’s performance is thus in the upper end of results for the “left of the left” and PCF constellation since the 1980s.

François Bayrou, not too unexpectedly, suffered a major reversal of fortunes after his 2007 success (18.6%). He won only 9.1% of the vote, a bit less than expected but above all a full 9.4% below his 2007 result. In 2007, Bayrou had announced that politics would never again be the same. Indeed, he was correct. The old UDF was never to return to its former prominence!

As I have written countless times, Bayrou was guilty of grossly misunderstanding and misinterpreting his fairly remarkable success in 2007 as a full confidence vote in his policies, political views and Third Way centrist strategy. As an old UDF politician, he likely believed that he had retrieved the old Christian democratic Lecanuet-Barre electorate of 1965/1988, and that he could use this more solid electorate as a solid political base for a revival of the centre in a new type of centrist dynamic. In fact, his electorate was, despite appearances, rather different from the traditional UDF electorate of the past. Faced with a polarizing and markedly right-leaning UMP candidate who was clearly tacking in the FN’s direction rather than in the UDF’s direction, he gained moderate centre-right votes. But faced with a PS candidate with credibility issues and whose personality failed to convince a lot of left-wing voters, he gained the support of centre-left voters who did not want to vote for Royal. Above all, his “respectable anti-system” appearance in 2007, unusual for a centrist candidate, allowed him to appeal to a certain kind of anti-establishment voter who would otherwise certainly not have voted for the UDF.

Bayrou certainly miscalculated because the creation of the MoDem led to the implosion of the remnants of the UDF and the transformation of the French centre into a minefield lacking a leader. He was left politically isolated. The only thing Bayrou has going for him is that he remains the most well-known leader of the leaderless centre, and also one of the most popular active politicians in France.

Bayrou opted to play the same game as in 2007 in 2012, taking up the same image as a respectable moderate anti-establishment candidate. However, the mood in 2007 was far more suitable to such a candidate than the mood in 2012. The economic crisis certainly has resulted in a certain radicalization or toughening of political rhetoric on both the left and the right, and voters are not as keen on Bayrou’s low-key moderate and respectable anti-establishment creed, preferring instead the more virulently anti-system discourse of Mélenchon and Le Pen. Secondly, Bayrou’s 2007 performance was helped in large part by the lack of credibility and cohesive partisan support for the PS’ candidate, Ségolène Royal. Faced with a far more credible and appealing PS rival, one who has discovered the strong appeal of anti-Sarkozyst message to left-wingers but who also has a much wider centrist appeal than the erratic Royal, Bayrou was squeezed badly on his left.

Bayrou’s opening would have been to take advantage of Nicolas Sarkozy’s centrist weakness, especially in the wake of the right-populist tone struck by Sarkozy’s campaign. However, Bayrou was unable to capitalize on Sarkozy’s weakness, as those centrists who were unhappy with Sarkozy preferred to vote for Hollande anyway and Sarkozy proved surprisingly strong in his ability to hold more centre-right voters loyal to the fold. Bayrou might have suffered from a vote utile phenomenon to his left and right. On paper, his electoral appeal probably remains rather significant, but centre-leftists might have preferred a vote utile for the PS candidate while centre-rightists might have preferred a vote utile for the UMP candidate. Bayrou was thus left with a core centrist electorate, probably a tad more right-leaning than his eclectic 2007 electorate was.

Bayrou’s poor showing will, in the long term, further marginalize him and his party to the point where he will become (if he hasn’t already become) the sole thing going in the MoDem’s favour. He will probably have lost some credibility as a centrist leader, further weakening his potential ability to play a major role in any future centrist refoundation. The potential of a Hollande presidency could serve to further weaken him, given that certain MoDemites have shown a strong attraction to Hollande and the left, and some – mostly municipal councillors governing with the left locally – have already talked over their boss’ head to endorse Hollande.

Eva Joly, of course, had a disappointing but not unexpected showing: only 2.3% of the votes. While narrowly beating out Dominique Voynet’s terrible 2007 result (1.6%) allows her and EELV to save face, her result is definitely very much on the low end of results for green candidates since 1974. A far cry not only from the heights of Green support in 2009 and 2010 but also from Noël Mamère’s successful candidacy in 2002, which had allowed the Greens to break 5% support in a presidential election.

Presidential elections – very personalized contests – are never favourable to the Greens whose few strong personalities (Daniel Cohn-Bendit) often opt out of presidential contests and whose support is usually much higher in more impersonal types of contests. However, after the formation of a surprisingly solid and strong Green electorate after the 2009 Euros, EELV certainly expected a relative success in 2012. At the campaign’s outset, their goal was clearly to break Mamère’s 2002 record and win upwards of 5-7%. Such a strong result would give EELV strong bidding power against the PS. However, the Greens probably chose the wrong candidate. While Nicolas Hulot would have been vulnerable on his left because of his clear weakness with EELV’s core ‘red-green’ type of clearly left-wing electorate, he would probably have been able to, temporarily, challenge Hollande and Bayrou for centrist/centre-left, socially liberal urban voters who had made EELV’s success in 2009 and, to a lesser extent, 2010. Hulot, on top of that, had a media-savvy personality far more suited from prime time and the image-driven world of personalized presidential politics than Eva Joly, an austere and unappealing candidate who was clearly not suited for presidential politics.

Joly’s campaign was unsuccessful. Her more markedly left-wing tone and her unappealing ‘end-is-nigh’ type of environmentalist rhetoric probably lost her the backing of centrist/centre-left 2009 Green supporters as early as day one. However, her campaign was so unsuccessful that she was not even able to draw any profits from Hollande’s slightly less ‘green’ image and his more pragmatic positions on issues such as nuclear energy which might have alienated some eco-conscious left-wingers. Clearly, she suffered from Hollande’s strong appeal to the anti-Sarkozyst left through the vote utile phenomenon but her unsuccessful and unorthodox type of campaign clearly weakened her. As is common for Green presidential candidates, Joly found herself squeezed by the far more successful campaigns and personal appeal of Mélenchon and Hollande – and perhaps even Bayrou.

Joly’s terrible result throws EELV back into the ditch which it had managed to climb out of in 2009 and stay out of in 2010 and 2011. Between 2009 and 2010 (2011 arguably), the PS needed EELV. Strategical considerations of this type prevented the PS from playing hardball with the Greens as they had in 2007, and forced the PS to give in to EELV’s fairly ambitious demands. EELV’s success in 2009 and even in 2010 gave them grand ideas, further boosted by the relative success of EELV candidates against PS candidates in certain cantonal runoffs in last year’s cantonal elections. EELV became a very demanding partner, getting used to the old intra-left politics of bidding for power.

By getting thrown back into the ditch, EELV can no longer afford to be a demanding ally. Unlike in 2009-2010, it is not the PS which needs EELV but rather EELV which needs the PS. The Greens are threatened with a return to subservience to the PS, the eternal threat of marginalization and transformation into the PS’ aile verte. They are lucky that they were able to extract a juicy electoral deal from the PS in November 2011, but they are likely concerned that Joly’s weak result will increase the opposition within the PS to that controversial deal. A particular attention to conserving the gains they made in relative bidding power vis-a-vis the PS likely explains why Joly and the Green establishment led by Cécile Duflot have proven to be particularly keen on doing all they can to help Hollande defeat Sarkozy on May 6.

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan‘s 1.8% result can be described as decent. It is not great, but it is in the upper range for his “type” of paleo-Gaullist right-wing candidacies. It is both above the 1.77% his party won in the 2009 European elections and the fairly comparable 1.66% won by Michel Debré in 1981, on a not too dissimilar type of platform.

I feel as if NDA could have done a bit better, given his surprisingly strong result running in the 2010 regional elections in Île-de-France (4.2%). However, a presidential election probably remains too personalized for NDA/his party. He was probably squeezed on both sides, by Marine Le Pen on a similar type of national-conservative souverainiste rhetoric and by Nicolas Sarkozy, on a traditional appeal to the type of conservatives who would be prone to voting for NDA. In the end, some right-wing voters who might have flirted with the possibility of voting for NDA probably chose the vote utile with Nicolas Sarkozy, perhaps buying into Sarkozy’s mythical belief in the first-place-in-the-first-round theory.

The souverainiste family of the French right, lying between the FN and the mainstream right, has found itself orphaned and leaderless since the departure or political marginalization of its old leader, Philippe Séguin, Charles Pasqua and Philippe de Villiers. NDA, despite being a fairly good orator (and this despite a tendency to use stupid language), has not really been able to restructure a Gaullist or national-conservative right lying between the FN and UMP in the wake of the RPF and MPF’s demise. The ever-increasing polarization of French politics and the UMP’s shift away from the centre-right chiraco-villepinisme towards a sarkozysme which is far more right-populist makes the emergence of an independent national-conservative right (a bridge between FN and UMP) much harder than it could have been in the 1990s. Ironically, it might be the Droite pop wing of the UMP which is in a better position to emerge as the quasi-heir to Pasqua-Villiers souverainiste family.

Philippe Poutou and Nathalie Arthaud were, unsurprisingly, unable to catch on to the magic personal appeal of their respective predecessors (Olivier Besancenot and Arlette Laguiller). Both of those charismatic leaders of the French far-left had an electoral appeal which far surpassed that of their fairly weak and marginal parties, meaning that their presidential candidacies were always or almost always able to appeal a much wider left-wing base than the single far-left family. With Arlette’s retirement and Besancenot’s progressive withdrawal from politics after the total failure of his attempt at structuring the far-left excluding the FG, their respective parties (LO and NPA) have been reduced to where they laid in the 1960s and 1970s: a core far-left and more purely Trotskyist electorate.

Philippe Poutou was the one who came out of it all with his head held highest, winning 1.15% of the vote. In recent years, the NPA has tended to have a slightly larger natural electorate than LO. This is perhaps because the NPA has a slightly more media-savvy profile, and its figures tend to love being in the media and play to that. Furthermore, they are also far more “modern” than LO which reads like Marxist philosophy from the 1960s and seems to act and run campaigns as if it were still the 1960s – in contrast to the NPA which appears far more “hip” with its more “up-to-date” anti-capitalism, anti-liberalism and semi-adoption of New Left discourse on feminism, self-determination or environmentalism (combined with a less dogmatic approach to economic matters). Poutou’s image of “I’m a manual worker, like you, not of them politicians” might have boosted his profile and standing a bit. In contrast, Arthaud had a very austere hard-left appearance, had no charisma and ran a pretty terrible campaign. She comes nowhere close to the warmth and congeniality which Arlette gave off.

With the withdrawal of Besancenot and Arlette from active politics (Besancenot might yet return, but his moment in the sun came and went), the old far-left (LO/NPA) has been reduced to crumbs, where it stood prior to Arlette and later Besancenot’s resuscitation of far-left fortunes in 1974 and 2002 respectively. Mélenchon’s somewhat ironic progressive unification of the left of the left constellation will continue to marginalize the LO/NPA far-left to its core 1-2% base – basically, the minority of hard left activists who have an unfavourable view of Mélenchon, the former Socialist cabinet minister, and who will never vote FN or PS.

Jacques Cheminade won more raw votes than in 1995 but a lower percentage of the vote than in his previous candidacy. He was the practical joke throughout the campaign, and most people will have gotten a few laughs out of him. He certainly swept the Martian vote. Every presidential election needs its “how the hell did they manage to run?” category of candidates who turn into joke candidates. Cheminade played that role in 1995 and again in 2012.

Exit Poll Analysis

Ipsos and Ifop both conducted some fairly reliable studies on the sociology of the electorate, similar to the exit polls we can see in the United States. The table below presents the results of the Ipsos exit poll/sondage jour du vote for each of the top five candidates. Their results are compared to the 2007 Ipsos exit poll on the sociology of the electorate. Mélenchon’s result is compared to the sum total of Schivardi+Arlette+Besancenot+Buffet in 2007, while all other candidates are compared to their own personal showings or that of the candidate of their parties in 2007. These exit polls give us some quantitative data from which we can form theories or prove theories about the results. The comparison to 2007 allows us to see where the candidates improved most and least, or where they lost the most and lost the least.

Ipsos found some starker gender gaps for both Mélenchon and Le Pen than Ifop had. Ipsos had Mélenchon winning 14% with men, but only 9% with women while Ifop found no significant gap (12% ans 11% respectively). According to Ipsos, Marine did significantly better with men – no gender advantage for her – taking 21% of their votes against only 15% with women. Ifop found a similar but much smaller gap (20% and 17% respectively). Rather interestingly, Ifop, which also broke down gender by age groups (35 and under or 35+) found that Mélenchon and Marine both did a bit better with women aged under 35 than with men aged under 35. However, I usually don’t place much emphasis on a gender gap unless it is a well known significant vote determinant.

The 18-24 demographic had received particular attention when CSA had come out with one of its typical “shock polls” which had shown Marine Le Pen winning 26% of the vote with this age group. Fairly unsurprisingly, while Marine Le Pen did improve significantly upon her father’s showing with the same age group in 2007, she did about average (18%) with this group. According to Ifop, she even performed below average (15%) with these voters. The top FN age groups remained middle-aged voters between 25 and 49, something which is also confirmed by Ifop. The oldest voters remained most resistant to the FN’s appeal, while young voters showed no particular bias in the far-right’s favour. In the same 18-24 age group, Ipsos and Ifop have major disagreements on Mélenchon’s appeal. Ipsos has him pegged at 8%, which would actually be 4% below what the far-left/PC combined won in 2007. It is not unreasonable to assume that the older Mélenchon might not have the same appeal as the young Besancenot had with young voters. However, Ifop tells us that he did significantly better with young voters 18-24 (16%) than with any other age group. Something’s fishy, but I tend to trust Ipsos more on this particular case.

As always, the data by socioprofessional category is always the most interesting – but Ipsos and Ifop apparently polled different planets! Fairly obviously, Sarkozy clearly won artisans, commerçants category – traditionally a petit bourgeois electorate of shopkeepers, artisans and small business owners. These voters tend to be the most favourable to the right, which places emphasis on their preferred themes of low taxes, less regulation and looser labour laws. Ipsos has Marine Le Pen winning 25% in this boutiquier electorate which has always had a certain inclination towards the FN, even if Ifop pegging her at 17% with these voters make more sense (Ipsos had her father at 19% with artisans, commerçants in 2002).

The cadres supérieurs (managerial) and professions libérales (higher professional) form the real peak of the CSP+ category and have shifted fairly dramatically to the left in recent years. Hollande does not seem to have improved significantly upon Royal’s 2007 performance, which had already been very strong. Ipsos has him at 30%, while Ifop has him at 31%. Mélenchon carried a certain appeal to these voters, especially those cadres sups or higher professionals in the public sector, and won a fairly strong 9%, 7% above the combined total of the far-left/PC in 2007. Ipsos sees Sarkozy at 33% with these voters, which would actually be a 4% improvement on his 2007 result with this electorate. It is possible that he gained a few Bayrou 2007 voters within this category (with which Bayrou did well but lost very heavily), but Ifop’s poll, which has him at 27% with these same voters, might tend to be closer to reality.

The President’s troubles can be seen with employees and intermediate-grade (professions intermédiaires), two socioprofessional groups forming a sort of lower middle-class and average middle-class respectively, with which he lost heavily compared to 2007. Ipsos has him with 22% with both groups, Ifop has him at 19% and 21% respectively. Hollande and Mélenchon did very well with intermediate-grade voters, especially those in the public sector, who form a type of electorate which is very much dissatisfied with Sarkozy’s policies and record (purchasing power, fiscal policy) but probably still too well-off to vote for the FN in larger numbers (though Ifop has Marine at 19% with these voters, Ipsos has her at 12%. Her father won 14% in 2002). On the other hand, employees (considered CSP-), while sharing perhaps similar concerns and views on Sarkozy’s record and policies, a certain category of employees (in the private sector, in small businesses including vendors and cashiers) have a strong inclination towards the FN. Ipsos has her at 21% with employees, up 5% on her father’s 2002 showing with employees, while Ifop has her tied for first at 28%. In this case, Ipsos seems closer to reality.

A lot of ink has been spilled about the voting patterns of ouvriers (qualified and unqualified manual workers, either working-class or lower middle-class). Formerly the electoral base of the left, the PCF in particular, it has become a swing electorate in which the FN but also the traditional right can expect better results. Since 1995, the FN has been the dominant party with ouvriers and they were the type of FN voter who remained most loyal to Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2007. While Sarkozy did well with these voters in the runoff (46%), his first round performance was actually not too spectacular (21%, behind Le Pen). In both the runoff and first round, Sarkozy has a problem with these voters. Ipsos has him at 19%, Ifop has him even lower at 14%. Ipsos has Marine Le Pen at 29%, which would actually be one percentage point behind her father alone in 2002 (30%). However, Ifop has her at 33% which might more accurately reflect the ‘new’ nature of her electorate as we will see later. Ifop and Ipsos also differ on Hollande and Mélenchon’s comparative performance with this electorate. Ipsos places the former at 27%, which would be 6% better than Royal in 2007, and Mélenchon at 11% – paradoxically below his average and 3% behind the combined far-left/PC in 2007. Ifop has the latter narrowly trailing the former (18% vs. 21%). Ipsos, in this case, seems closer to reality.

Retirees remain the backbone of Nicolas Sarkozy’s solid electorate. In fact, Ifop has Sarkozy in third place behind Marine Le Pen with all actifs (active workers/citizens). Though Hollande posts a strong performance with retirees, which is not extremely surprising, Sarkozy remains dominant – though Ifop has the President at 37% against only 33% for Ipsos.

Breaking down the electorate in terms of employment sector, the public sector unsurprisingly shows a strong bias towards the left and a very weak showing for Sarkozy. Mélenchon, Hollande but also Bayrou and Le Pen do well with those in public sector while Sarkozy performs very poorly (16-17%). Marine Le Pen won about 19 or 23%.

Private sector employees usually have a much sharper bias in favour of the right, but it has disappeared this year. Ipsos has Hollande and Sarkozy tied at 27% apiece with 20% for Marine Le Pen, while Ifop actually has him third with 22% against 27% for Hollande and 23% for Le Pen. Ipsos seems more accurate, especially since I have a hard time buying Ifop seeing Mélenchon as strong in the private than in the public (13%). Finally, in the self-employed (indépendants) and employers category identified solely by Ifop, Sarkozy leads with 38% to Marine’s 19% and Hollande’s 16%. Self-employed independent workers and employers are a very heavily right-wing category, which is why I have a very hard time buying Ipsos’ results for self-employed voters: Sarkozy only up 4 on Hollande?!

In terms of education, the right’s performance usually tends to form a sort of concave downward parabola (in recent years) with weak(er) performance with those with no diplomas at one end and those with higher certifications (BAC+2-3 and upwards). This is, at least, how Ipsos sees Sarkozy’s performance this year: strongest with those with a BAC (high school diploma) or trades certifications lower than the BAC (BEPC/BEP/CAP/CEP). Marine Le Pen’s results are fairly similar, though she does better with those with no diploma and far worse with those with the highest certifications. With the bobo phenomenon, a significant percentage of voters with university or post-secondary education or certification lean to the left, in increasingly large numbers. Ifop’s results are a bit different, showing Sarkozy still performing very strongly (over 30%) with superior qualifications, similar to Hollande and Bayrou.

Income questions rarely feature prominently in French exit polling, at least much less prominently than in American exit polling. Ipsos actually asked based on set income brackets, unlike Ifop which erred on the safe side and asked the less intrusive question of how easily voters made ends meet. Unsurprisingly, Sarkozy’s support had a strong positive correlation with higher income, performing best (30%) with those earning over 3,000€ and worst with those earning less than 1,200€ (23%). Ifop found even starker differences when it asked how easily voters made ends meet: Sarkozy won 46% with those who said they made out very easily with their income but only 15% with those who said they had lots of difficulty. With Ifop, Marine Le Pen’s support followed the opposite pattern than that of Sarkozy: poor with the most well-off voters and strongest (32%) with those who reported lots of difficulty in making ends meet. Ipsos found no stark income differentiation with Marine’s voters, those she did perform worse with the wealthiest voters. On the left, Hollande’s patterns in both Ifop and Ipsos were not as clear, reflecting a largely middle-class electorate. Ipsos has him performing strongest at both ends of its small income range, while Ifop has him low at both extremes and strongest in the middle (those who had mild difficulties making out but also those who have it generally easy).

The questions based on recalled past votes and ideological/partisan proximity are also interesting, beyond the obvious realities. Hollande, Sarkozy and Le Pen all had strong retention with those identifying with their respective parties (85, 90 and 88% respectively for the three) while Mélenchon and Bayrou only convinced about two-thirds of their partisan bases (64% and 66% respectively). Eva Joly retained between a third or 40% of Green sympathizers, with Hollande winning about three in ten.

Ideologically, Ipsos’ data based on ideological self-identification is fascinating. Especially for Bayrou’s electorate. He collapsed by a full 22% with those who identify as “rather left-wing”, taking only 6% to Hollande’s 67% – who improved by a full 24% on Royal’s performance. Clearly, Bayrou, in 2007, had taken a lot of soft-left/centre-left voters who were uneasy with Royal. To a more credible and convincing PS opponent, he lost all but a handful. He performed only minimally better with those who were “rather right-wing”, falling by 16% to take only 11% this year with these voters. Sarkozy managed 67% with these voters, up 15% on his 2007 result in the same category. If you believe the polls, it seems as if Bayrou also lost on his right to Sarkozy despite all that has been said about Sarkozy’s weak centre-right in this campaign. In Ipsos’ new ‘centrist’ category, Bayrou dominated with 47%.

Overall, both Hollande and Sarkozy improved on their parties’ 2007 performance with their grand ideological family: Hollande took 61% with the combined left against 23% for Mélenchon while Sarkozy took 65% of the combined right against 25% for Le Pen. Conversely, they both lost a bit on their ‘extremes’ – Hollande was especially weaker than Royal with “very left-wing” voters, losing a lot to Mélenchon (who did not actually gain that much, his strongest gains came with “left-wing” voters); Sarkozy was weakened a tiny bit by Marine’s result with “very right-wing” voters (71% for Le Pen vs. 26% for Sarkozy).

Ipsos and Ifop both asked voters about their vote in 2007. According to Ipsos, Hollande retained 71% of Royal07, Sarkozy retained 73% of his 2007 vote and Marine Le Pen retained 75% of her father’s 2007 vote. Ifop has very similar results. Hollande lost about 10-15% of Royal07 to Mélenchon and Sarkozy lost about 11-13% of his 2007 vote to Le Pen (which is less than what he had gained from JMLP02 in 2007). About 12-13% of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 2007 electorate preferred to vote for Sarkozy over his daughter this year. Bayrou retained either 36% (Ifop) or 39% (Ipsos) of his 2007 vote. Ifop says he lost 25% (of his 2007 electorate) to Hollande, 15% to Sarkozy, 10% to Le Pen and 9% to Mélenchon. Ipsos says 27% to Hollande, 11% to Sarkozy, 9% to Le Pen and 8% to Mélenchon. Talking about Mélenchon, Ipsos found that he won 45% of the combined far-left/PC/Green vote in 2007 while Ifop says he won 39% of the 2007 “far-left” vote. At any rate, as imagined previously, a fair share of 2007 “left of the left” voters opted for Hollande over Mélenchon this year.

Ifop has asked voters to recall their vote in the 2005 EU constitutional referendum, and broken down ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes by ideology. Hollande won 77% of left-wing yes voters and 53% of left-wing no voters - Mélenchon won only a third of left-wing no voters but a decent 10% of left-wing yes voters. Sarkozy won 67% of right-wing yes voters against 16% for Bayrou and 11% for Marine. Marine, in contrast, won 51% of right-wing no voters (and 6% of left-wing no voters) against only 34% for Sarkozy.

Ipsos likes me, apparently, because they also asked about voting by faith. 54% of regularly-practicing Catholics voted for Sarkozy, against 14% for Hollande and 12% for Le Pen (but only 9% for Bayrou!). Occasionally practicing Catholics went for Sarkozy 38-21 over Le Pen with 17% for Hollande and 11% for Bayrou and 7% for Mélenchon. Non-practicing Catholics gave Sarkozy a three-point edge (30-27) over Hollande and a ten point advantage over Le Pen (20%). Those reporting another religion (Muslim in large part, but also Jewish) voted 47% for Hollande against only 22% for Sarkozy and 14% for Mélenchon. With 8%, Marine Le Pen narrowly beat out Bayrou (6%) with these voters. Those with no religion clearly preferred Hollande (34%) but second place was more divided – 18% voted Sarkozy, 17% voted Mélenchon and 16% voted Le Pen.

Finally, in terms of issues, economic and fiscal considerations predominated. For Ipsos, 46% of all voters identified purchasing power as one of three top issues, 44% identified the economic and financial crisis and 30% identified unemployment. Ifop found that 42% cited the reduction of the public debt as one of their three top issues (but only 20% for Ipsos) while 38% identified the fight against unemployment and 35% cited raising purchasing power. Immigration was cited by about 24-28% of voters in both polls and 20% cited security-related issues. Ipsos found only 15% citing the educational issue as one of their top three issues, but Ifop reported 24% citing education. Healthcare was cited by either 13% or 17% depending on the pollster, environment was cited by 6% of voters and taxes by 17%.

Mélenchon’s voters were not concerned by the debt or deficit, but many cited issues such as purchasing power, wages, pensions, unemployment, inequalities/poverty, healthcare and public services among their three issues. Compared to the wider electorate, extremely few (1-3%) of his voters cited security or immigration as top concerns.

Hollande’s voters were, like Mélenchon’s voters, concerned about purchasing power, wages, unemployment, pensions and healthcare. However, fewer of his voters identified inequalities/poverty as one of their three issues, but a lot more identified education (43% according to Ifop!) as one of their three issues. They were also a bit more concerned, according to Ifop, about reducing the debt. Again, few cited immigration or security as major concerns.

Bayrou’s voters were very concerned about the deficit/debt and education. The percentage citing issues such as taxes, unemployment, purchasing power and healthcare were close to the national averages for those issues. Immigration and security are of a little more concern, but still under 10% of his voters cited those issues in their top three.

Sarkozy’s voters were very concerned about the debt/deficit (up to 76% says Ifop, Ipsos says 30%) and taxes, while very few were concerned about inequalities/poverty, education, healthcare, public services, unemployment or purchasing power. We see a much stronger concern, however, with Sarkozyst voters, for immigration and security issues. For Ifop, 45% cited fighting illegal immigration as one of their top three concerns and 29% also identified fighting criminality. Ipsos found that 35% of his voters gave immigration as one of three issues, and 28% gave insecurity as an issue.

Marine Le Pen’s voters, unsurprisingly, are heavily concerned by immigration and security issues (77 and 54% in Ifop, 62 and 44% in Ipsos). They are by far the electorate which is the most concerned by these issues, even more than Sarkozy’s voters. Taxes and the debt, major issues for Sarkozy’s voters, were of little concern to her voters. Those who also cited social and economic issues in their top three were more likely to cite those which are of concern to left-wing voters: purchasing power, wages, pensions and inequalities/poverty. However, left-wing biggies such as healthcare, education and public services did not feature prominently and unemployment was not represented above average in her electorate. Compared to 2002, economic and social issues including purchasing power and inequalities have gained much prominence within her electorate.

Geographical Analysis

A geographical analysis remains, as always, the best way of understanding a candidate and better identifying his strengths and weaknesses. Overall, the results of this election reflect a fairly strong division between the east and west of the country, but above all something of a clash between what has been called the ‘integrated core’ and the ‘marginalized peripheries’, a phenomenon which is very clear in Marine Le Pen but also Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s electorate.

% vote for F. Hollande (PS) by constituency

François Hollande, like in the PS primary, benefited from a fairly even distribution of support throughout the country. Compared to Royal in 2007, he not only kept her strong support in the old Socialist strongholds of the southwest and her gains in the west/Brittany, he also significantly improved on her showings in the old proletarian Socialist bases in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Picardy, Ardennes, Lorraine and parts of Franche-Comté and Burgundy. Of course, Hollande found some very strong support in his political home (Corrèze), where he won 43% in the old lands of the chiraquie.

Compared to Mitterrand in 1988, Hollande’s base remains a bit more western than that of Mitterrand, reflecting long-term Socialist decline in the working-class regions of eastern France. Hollande, however, has if not turned around this trend at least abated it somewhat. Yet, while his map – unlike that of Royal in April 2007 – does have shades of the classical map of the PS (in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Ardennes, Picardy or Lorraine), his relative weakness in a large region which lies to the east of a Le Havre-Reims-St Etienne-Perpignan line is rather striking. The new solid core of the PS appears to be found in the old chiraquie (now hollandie?), the old solid bases of Limousin and the southwest and Brittany (in addition to most of the Petite Couronne of greater Paris).

On the other hand, compared to Mitterrand, Hollande – like Royal – has raked in far stronger performances in western France, Brittany and parts of the Massif Central, Limousin and Auvergne. All of Brittany, including traditionally more conservative Morbihan, voted for Hollande by comfortable margins (except Morbihan). His inroads in departments such as Mayenne, Maine-et-Loire and Manche, historically conservative (if not reactionary!) Catholic heartlands of the inner west, are equally as impressive. When set against 1988, his gains in Limousin and Auvergne are even more impressive. Hollande clearly gained favourite son support in native Corrèze but, like for Chirac, his favourite son support turned into a regional boost which has created a halo of stronger supporter in neighboring regions of the Haute-Vienne, Creuse, Lot, Puy-de-Dôme and Cantal.

The gains registered by Hollande in Catholic heartlands including Cantal, Aveyron, Haute-Loire and Lozère are nothing short of impressive. In a historical perspective, that Cantal, Haute-Loire and Aveyron vote for a Socialist candidate in the first round is nothing short of phenomenal. Of course, we all know that these departments are evolving and that Hollande’s victory was in part based on raking in huge performances in the core left-wing regions in these departments (Aurillac, Decazeville and the Brivadois respectively), but Hollande made clear inroads into previously fairly conservative but rapidly evolving regions (such as the Cantal bordering Corrèze, Millau-St. Affrique and the Grands Causses and the Puy basin respectively).

These are clear signs of the progressive left-wing trend in the old Catholic heartlands of France – except those in eastern France – famous in the past for their rock-ribbed conservatism but also their politically moderate, Christian democratic traditions. It is no surprise that Hollande would prove an appealing candidate for these type of voters, left without a clear partisan home since the creation of the UMP in 2002 and the collapse of the UDF in 2007.

% change in the PS vote, 2012 vs. 2007

François Hollande’s map is both more western and more urban than classical PS maps. Hollande performed well throughout France’s major urban centres, winning all but seven of the 50 large cities in mainland France, including more right-leaning ones. This is the logical evolution of a sharp trend towards the left in urban areas, especially middle-class cities and their suburbs. The seeds were sown as early as 1977, but they became very apparent in 2007. In the 1960s, urban politics in France were marked by a generally straightforward clash between bourgeois urban centres and their proletarian suburban hinterland, but the cards have been changing dramatically in French urban politics since the 1960, creating a mosaic of different socio-economic environments and dramatically changing the makeup of both the old suburbs and the old inner city. The results of oft-cited boboïsation phenomenon in the largest cities are very clear on the above map in Paris, parts of the Hauts-de-Seine but also the old moderate bourgeois city of Lyon.

The most important contemporary change in urban politics, especially in western France, has been the growth of the left-wing (PS) vote in the growing middle-class suburbs of cities such as Rennes, Nantes, Caen, Niort, Poitiers but also Angers or Laval which had been conquered beginning in 1977. Population growth in the suburban commuter belts of these and other large urban centres in western France has been favourable to the left, as young families and ‘urban’ professionals move – often by choice – to these growing accessible suburbs. The PS remains much weaker in more distant and less accessible exurbia.

Compared to Ségolène Royal’s performance in 2007, Hollande – predictably – recorded the strongest gains in Corrèze and neighboring regions (the Lot is a particularly amusing example of Hollande’s regional halo effect). However, he also gained considerably in regions where Bayrou had done well in 2007 and where more left-leaning centrist/centre-left voters either returned home or preferred the consensual moderate over the populist-right incumbent head of state. Hollande recorded significant gains in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, bocage vendéen, parts of Ille-et-Vilaine, Finistère-Nord, the Cotentin, the bocage normand and a scattering of cantons in the inner west. Hollande’s gains in the north of the Cotentin peninsula (Cherbourg) were rather impressive – doubly more impressive if you thought that Hollande’s stance on nuclear energy could hurt him in a region home to the Flamanville nuclear reactor. Some have theorized that Bernard Cazeneuve, a close ally of Hollande and the PS mayor of Cherbourg, might have sped up Hollande’s gains in the region, like Michel Sapin could explain Hollande’s strong performance in the Indre.

Hollande also made sizable gains throughout most of the greater Paris region, both in lower-income Socialist strongholds or in more affluent conservative municipalities. Despite being rivaled by Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he also scored some gains in working-class regions of northeastern and eastern France, though there are no clear patterns of gains in traditionally left-leaning working-class regions – he made strong gains in the Ardennes and in parts of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, but far more tepid gains in Lorraine or Franche-Comté. Throughout the country, especially in the east, Hollande made pretty significant gains in the immediate commuter belts of most large urban centres.

In contrast, Hollande underperformed not only in Royal’s political base of Deux-Sèvres but also parts of the Alps, rural areas in the Drôme-Ardèche, the Cévennes and a lot of more rural parts of the Midi. It was in these predominantly rural and usually solidly left-wing regions where he proved most vulnerable to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Mélenchon did limit his gains in traditionally Communist proletarian regions, but as we shall see later, Mélenchon’s electorate is not as simple as one might assume.

% vote for N. Sarkozy (UMP) by constituency

Nicolas Sarkozy‘s electoral geography reveals his problems and his many weaknesses, touched on in the preceding paragraphs. While his map is a bit more eastern than older, classical maps of the right, his current map is a rather “classical” map of the right, devoid of the regions where he himself had recorded unusually strong appeal for a right-wing candidate back in 2007. On his map, we find the core strongholds of the right in affluent urban and suburban areas, the fading remnants of the old Catholic heartlands, the wealthy countryside of the Champagne region, the Lyonnais, Savoie and the conservative bastions of the Var and Alpes-Maritimes. Obviously, Hollande has eliminated almost all remnants of the chiraquie, but that had already been apparent sans Hollande in 2007.

Gone, however, are the Sarkozyst gains of 2007 in the Rhône valley, parts of Nord Isère, Languedoc, Franche-Comté, Lorraine and the Nord. These had been the regions where Sarkozy, generally, had eaten into Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 2002 electorate with the most impact. As shown in the exit poll analysis, while Sarkozy probably did keep parts of the Le Pen 2002 electorate, he lost about 10-16% of his 2007 electorate to Marine Le Pen this year.

In Sarkozy’s case, looking at the comparative gains and loses is rather instructive. The areas where he gained are a few and far between. He did gain uniformly in the Vendée (the only department where he performed better in 2012 than 2007), where the absence of Philippe de Villiers allowed him to gain some – but perhaps not all – of those who had voted for the native son in 2007. Sarkozy also gained in the Choletais and Saumurois, where Villiers had performed fairly decently in 2007. Otherwise, Sarkozy’s limited gains generally came from isolated areas where Bayrou had don unusually well in 2007 and where some of his votes went to Sarkozy this year. This is apparent in a handful of cantons in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques but also in more clearly defined areas which are concomitant with the constituencies of NC deputies who had campaigned for Bayrou in 2007 but supported Sarkozy this year: Hervé Morin in the Eure, Maurice Leroy in the Loir-et-Cher and François Sauvadet in the Côte-d’Or.

Sarkozy’s loses were more limited in western France and in other traditionally Catholic conservative areas (the plateau of the Jura, for example). His performance there in 2007 had generally been unimpressive compared to Chirac and the right’s past performances, while Bayrou had performed very well. While it is clear he was unable to recoup all of Bayrou’s loses, Bayrou’s strong performances in 2007 and his strong loses in 2012 in these regions allowed Sarkozy to limit his loses to levels below his national average (-4% between 2007 and 2012).

% change in the UMP vote, 2012 vs. 2007

Sarkozy’s resistance was also particularly strong in the most affluent areas of the country, where the right has always been dominant and where Sarkozy had already done well in 2007. Perhaps Sarkozy’s past fiscal policies and fear of Hollande’s 75% tax bracket limited any tide against Sarkozy. He lost minimally in the affluent regions of his native Hauts-de-Seine and Yvelines but proved resistant in other affluent areas in France: Deauville/Trouville, Marcq, Limonest, Meylan, Cannes, Antibes-Biot, Saint-Tropez and La Baule. As in 2007, but even more this year, Sarkozy’s electorate in many places took the form of a very class-based vote.

On the other hand, Sarkozy’s loses were very heavy in regions where he had attracted many frontiste voters in 2007. Although there is almost no correlation between Sarkozy’s losses and Marine’s gains vis-a-vis 2007, the map of his loses make it clear that in regions such the Mediterranean coast, Rhône-Alpes, Île-de-France and Picardy he lost what he had gained in 2007. His losses basically reflect two major loses:

Firstly, and most unsurprisingly, he lost very much in working-class areas – of all kinds. The contours of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais’ mining basin, Meurthe-et-Moselle and Moselle’s iron ore/steel country, the mining basin of Moselle, the Montbéliard-Sochaux-Héricourt basin, Le Creusot-Montceau, Oyonnax and industrial suburbs of Le Rouen or Marseille are all apparent. Sarkozy lost heavily with a working-class (populaire) electorate which had been quite crucial to his victory in 2007. If his loses in other working-class areas (Carmaux, Decazeville, Saint-Nazaire) are not as stark, it is because he had not performed well in these areas in 2007. His loses were strongest in these proletarian, low-income regions where he had done unusually well in 2007. A mix of presidential style, presidential policy and economic conditions create a toxic mix for Sarkozy in these working-class areas.

Secondly, but perhaps most worryingly for the UMP, Sarkozy lost heavily in most of lower middle-class suburbia and exurbia. This is most apparent in Île-de-France and Oise, where Sarkozyst losses were very heavy, but also east of Lyon or around L’Etang de Berre outside Marseille. It is true that in 2007 he had managed to attract a lot of frontiste voters in these exurban (but not really rural working-class) areas, so heavy loses are to be expected. However, in large parts of the Parisian basin, Sarkozy’s losses don’t really correlate well with Marine Le Pen’s gains. He necessarily lost some support directly to the left. In 2007, Sarkozy had performed fairly well in both left-leaning inner suburban populaire areas and in more lower middle-class conservative exurbs – in both cases appealing to poor whites who commute to work and have been forced to live in less desirable locations because of high property prices downtown. There are certainly a lot of UMP-frontiste swingers in these areas, but necessarily some UMP-PS swing voters. Sarkozy’s elitist (bling-bling) style and policies, but also the impact of the economic crisis on the purchasing power and incomes of generally quite indebted middle-class exurban families are the most likely explanations for these loses.

% vote for M. Le Pen (FN) by constituency

Changing gears to Marine Le Pen‘s map makes for a smooth transition of paragraphs. Her map generally remains loyal to the old FN pattern of strength east of the old Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan axis (perhaps better redefined to Le Havre-Reims-Valence-Perpignan) with an appendage into the Garonne Valley, but there has been a certain nationalization of the FN vote as it expands, slowly but surely, into areas of western France where it used to be very weak but where it can now count on a fairly limited but nonetheless significant base in the same type of areas where it is dominant in eastern France. The grand talk about massive gains in regions such as Brittany still miss the mark somewhat, but there is still some sort of nationalization if you look only at the big picture.

While the map gives the appearance of yet-another traditional frontiste-lepéniste map, the details hide another story. Marine Le Pen’s electorate has become unusually populaire (working-class/low income/working poor/small salaries-salariat modeste) by traditional FN standards. In a geographic sense, the new very proletarian nature of the mariniste vote is reflected by her excellent performance in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (a certain favourite daughter effect for sure, but still), Picardy and a good part of what is commonly referred to as the grand est (regions bordering Germany and Belgium). The shifting sociological base of the FN vote had been apparent in 2007, where Jean-Marie Le Pen resisted the Sarkozyst assault most successfully in Picardy, parts of Lorraine or the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. This year, the statistical correlation between Marine Le Pen’s vote and the percentage of ouvriers at a cantonal level is 0.466 – it had been 0.471 in 2007 but in 2002 the correlation between the two variables was only 0.237. The correlation between her vote and the percentage of those defined as salariat modeste (small salaries: ouvriers and employees) is 0.475. In the realm of political correlations at a fairly micro level, this is very stark – and the contrast with 2002 is fascinating and very telling.

Another novelty this year has likely been Marine Le Pen’s fairly strong and in many cases historically strong appeal in old proletarian Communist areas. While I still balk at talk of a PCF-FN correlation, this year is the first time where there appears to have been a fairly noteworthy and quasi-universal correlation between the two. To test this theory out, we still need analysis down to the precinct level, but Marine Le Pen clearly appealed to a fragment of the old Communist base in these working-class locales which had not usually been noted for their large FN votes. In old proletarian areas dominated, historically, by the PS, Marine Le Pen’s performance was solid but in most cases not quite “historic”. 1995 likely remains the peak of gaucho-lepénisme between PS and FN, but 2012 might be the peak (?) of gaucho-lepénisme between the PCF and FN.

As I had noted in another post, the purely working-class/proletarian “type” of FN vote – whether it is found in urbanized industrial conglomerations or in some cases in rural areas (the oft-ignored ouvrier caché phenomenon) – is the “type” of FN vote which can best be described as a protest vote. A protest vote against long-term perennial unemployment, declining urban environments, disappearing public services, low income, bleak economic future and the continued oblivion of successive government. Immigration might be a factor for these voters – the idea of immigrants who either take jobs from locals or don’t work and live comfortable lives on social assistance, but recall that the exit poll analysis above had shown the increasing importance of economic and social issues including purchasing power, wages or inequalities for FN voters.

The other main evolution of the frontiste has been a pretty generalized morphing into a very périurbain (exurban) vote. Much ink has been spilled recently about the idea of measuring voting patterns based on distance to large cities, and a handful of new explanations of voting patterns based on dividing the country into Marxist-like peripheries and cores have sprung up. Ifop drew up a post-election analysis to complement its past studies (usually the best studies on the topic) on this issue. This year, Marine Le Pen’s vote peaked (at about 21%) in areas which are between 30 and 50km from urban centres of more than 200k inhabitants. In 1995, daddy’s vote shares had peaked in communities 10 to 30km away from a large city, in 2002 his vote had peaked in areas 20 to 40km from a large city and in 2007 his vote had been highest in places which were also 30 to 50km from a large city.

There is an important contrast between what can be described as the périurbain choisi and périurbain subi (basically, “chosen” exurbia and “suffered” exurbia). The first denotes more comfortable upper middle-class exurban areas, accessible and connected to large business and educational cities, populated by professionals and higher-income earners who have chosen to live in the suburbs. The latter denotes lower-income, though not “poor” people who have been compelled to move to less desirable, less accessible and semi-rural exurban municipalities because of rising property prices in the old inner city and the inner suburbs. In this case, the FN vote can express concerns about security and opposition to immigration – because despite living in “lily-white” areas, these inhabitants work and socialize alongside immigrants in more ethnically diverse urban conglomerations – but it also expresses the concerns of a lower middle-class electorate which is considered about social marginalization, their wages, their purchasing power and their economic future. Similar to the Poujadist vote in 1956, there is a certain fear of ‘proletarianization’ or déclassement (falling down the social ladder). Marine Le Pen’s appeal to the “invisible” rural and exurban France likely struck a chord and hit all the right notes for these voters. Their vote for the FN, like for a lot of Marine Le Pen’s voters, does not necessarily represent racism but rather fears about the future and frustration at their marginalization in the “invisible” peripheral regions of France.

Marine Le Pen’s vote does reveal a schism between the ‘integrated’ core and the marginalized periphery, which was first apparent in 2005. The abundance of FN votes in peripheral France shows a widening gap between the “elites” and the “people”. Nicolas Sarkozy had proven successful in speaking to these voters in 2007, but their disappointment with his government and the UMP has been very deep. Sarkozy’s loses and performance in the exurban country of Seine-et-Marne, Yonne, Aube, Oise and Aisne was very weak.

Marine Le Pen was also successful in recouping most of her father’s loses in the old FN strongholds of Provence and the Languedoc, regions where the FN vote – in part – reflects a similar kind of increasingly marginalized petit bourgeois or lower middle-class in addition to other, local, factors.

% change in the FN vote, 2012 vs. 2002

A comparison to 2007 is interesting but not very telling: Marine Le Pen obviously outran her father’s weak result almost everywhere. A comparison to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s vote in 2002 - when he won 16.9% (about 1% less than what she won) is much more interesting. The map on the right shows cantons where her father did better in 2002 in blue and cantons where she did better this year in various shades of orange.

The first phenomenon is a generalized, quasi-universal decline for the far-right (in this ten year period) in almost all cities and towns and their immediate, older, suburbs. This is particularly clear, of course, in and around Paris (the blue on the map is a good guide to where population growth due to bobos/professionals was highest around Paris since 2002!), where the FN vote declined pretty significantly between 2002 and 2012. But it is also clear around Lyon, Marseille, Lille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Nantes or Montpellier (to cite only a few examples). Ifop’s analysis found that the only type of community where Marine did not do as well as her father in 2010 were those places located 0-10km from a large city. Her vote in these places were, on average, a full 4% below her national average. The FN vote dropping like flies in the core urban areas has been ongoing since 1984, when the FN vote was concentrated within large cities! It reflects a process of progressive gentrification and ‘professionalization’ which, combined with accompanying increases in property prices, forces lower income inhabitants (more prone to a FN vote) to move into the aforementioned exurbia.

Otherwise, her loses also reflect her more working-class electorate. It appears as if she was unable to regain some of the FN voters who had voted for Sarkozy in 2007, particularly the more affluent and professional ones (CSP+), which can serve to explain – perhaps – why she did comparatively poorly in Savoie (where it is very stark: she even lost heavily in working-class Cluses-Scionzier), Alsace or PACA. Part of the more traditionalist and conservative FN electorate apparently preferred to stick with Sarkozy. The result is that her voters are much more of the protest variety than of the ideological variety.

Her gains reflect a certain nationalization of the vote, as apparent by strong gains in weaker regions including Limousin, Charentes, Poitou, parts of Aquitaine, the inner west, Brittany and Normandy. Her gains, furthermore, in Picardy (but also parts of Upper Normandy) and the Pas-de-Calais are very clear – reflecting, again, the shifting face of the FN electorate. But in this particular case – especially in the Somme estuary – they also reflect the elimination of CPNT, the hunters’ party, very strong in the region, and which took away a lot of potential FN votes in 2002.

These gains reflect, primarily, the nationalization of the périurbain vote for the FN – describing the FN vote as a vote périurbain is reductive but not wrong – but also a strengthening in more isolated rural areas which are very distant from large urban areas. Ifop’s analysis picked this up: unlike in 1995 or 2002, but like in 2007, the FN vote declines progressively as you leave those places 30-50km from the city but it now picks up again in areas over 100km from the nearest city. Rural areas have felt increasingly dispossessed in recent years (loss of public services, marginalization, weak economies) and Sarkozy has proven to be quite unpopular even in conservative rural regions. Marine Le Pen’s strong results in places such as the Cantal or Mayenne reflect a certain rural conservative vote for the FN, which is not entirely new, but which is becoming more generalized.

% vote for J-L. Mélenchon (FG) by constituency

Jean-Luc Mélenchon‘s map gives a certain superficial appearance of a rather traditional Communist map. Once again, however, the devil is in the details. It is true that Mélenchon won most of his strongest results in old Communist strongholds: the ceinture rouge, the north of Marseille and its industrial hinterland, Haute-Vienne, the Trégorrois, Le Havre, Rouen’s suburbs, Vierzon, Longwy, and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining basin. After all, Mélenchon was the candidate of the FG – a coalition in which the PCF is the strongest partisan force – and he primarily attracted those who had voted PCF either in 2007 or before that.

However, looking at the details, Mélenchon’s pattern of support reflects a base which is more southern than the traditional PCF base. He did very well in places such as the Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Ardèche, Lozère, Hérault, Ariège, Hautes-Pyrénées and Lot which may certainly have old PCF strongholds but which are not usually thought of as being core Communist strongholds. In fact, his results in places such as the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Ardèche, Ariège and Lot are far more impressive than his performances in core Communist departments such as the Allier, Nord, Pas-de-Calais or Meurthe-et-Moselle.

Looking over Hollande’s performance compared to that of Royal in 2007, we had noted that he had underperformed Royal’s results in a lot of very left-wing rural areas in the Midi, Languedoc and Provence. In these and other regions (some with a stronger Communist history), Mélenchon’s candidacy seems to have awakened dormant forces of rural communism, or at least re-ignited the old left-wing traditions of certain rural regions in southern France.

The correlation between Mélenchon’s map and Arnaud Montebourg’s pattern of support (outside his native Burgundy) in last November’s PS primary are rather interesting. Montebourg had done fairly well in rural areas, where his vote expressed left-wing concerns about declining rural areas, the loss of public services and economic/demographic stagnation. The correspondence is not universal, but it appears as if Mélenchon was particularly successful in appealing to some left-wing Socialists who had supported Montebourg in the PS primary. His strong support in left-wing rural areas is a reflection of local services about a bleak economic future and especially the viability and disappearance of public services (healthcare, schools, post office, courts, police) from these isolated areas.

Mélenchon likely benefited from something of a left-wing protest from lower-income left-wing voters in rural areas. In a lot of more isolated and declining rural areas, such as those where Mélenchon performed best, with the slow decline of small businesses and other local industries, local administration and local schools have become the largest employers in these stagnating or often declining small towns. With the backdrop of regions which have been known for years for its anti-system but staunchly left-wing and socialist orientations, Mélenchon likely had a large appeal with employees in public administration or teachers, who found in his candidacy an attractive representative for their concerns about the loss of jobs a and public services in rural regions. It is clear that he touched an electorate which did not usually vote Communist in the past, and he awoke a dormant communist/socialist/red tradition in a lot of rural areas.

Combined with the strong vote for Marine Le Pen in exurban and rural areas, Mélenchon’s high support in rural areas reflect a certain cry of despair, which is both right-wing and left-wing, from rural areas which fear marginalization, further decline, job losses and weakening public services. The UMP and PS both seem unable to respond adequately, in the eyes of these voters, to the plight facing rural areas with their rhetoric focused on their classical themes and larger macroeconomic concerns.

Mélenchon also performed relatively well in most urban areas. He did very well in northeastern Paris, an historically working-class sector of the capital but which has undergone extensive gentrification and boboïsation. His results in other urban areas including Grenoble, Lille, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier or Rennes, not noted for their Communist strength, were also pretty strong. For some, the prospect of deriding Mélenchon as the “candidate of the bobos” has proven very attractive, and while it is true that he had an appeal to ‘bobo’ voters which far surpasses that of the PCF in recent years, it would be extremely reductive to sum up his vote solely to that factor (as his strength in rural communist area shows) and also pretty misleading. It appears as if Mélenchon did extremely well in places such as Lyon’s 1st arrondissement, Paris’ 19th and 20th arrondissement, Marseille’s 1st arrondissement or Montreuil, that is to say demographically evolving areas with a clear proletarian tradition which has seen significant gentrification in recent years even if they remain fairly low-income and still contain large concentrations of low-income residents.

One type of area where Mélenchon’s performances were rather underwhelming – to say the least – were in heavily proletarian old PCF strongholds. As noted above, while Marine Le Pen realized some historic highs in a lot of PCF-dominated working-class concentrations throughout France, Mélenchon’s results – while above average in the lot of them – were not what could have been expected given his still very good performance nationally (11%). It is clear that he was not really successful in attracting the entirety of dormant Communist votes in these largely urban working-class strongholds of the PCF.

% change in the FG/PCF vote, 2012 vs. 1995

Indeed, if you compare Mélenchon’s performance with that of Robert Hue in 1995 – the closest appropriate comparison for Mélenchon, really – a paradoxical pattern of losses or tepid gains in the traditional Communist strongholds contrasted with strong gains in non-Communist departments is drawn up. Hue, who only won some 8% of the vote in 1995, actually performed better than Mélenchon in core PCF bases such as the Allier, Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Aisne, Ardennes and Dordogne. Mélenchon’s gains were not very impressive in other traditional strong departments for the PCF, including the Cher, Indre, Haute-Vienne, Seine-Maritime, Val-de-Marne, Gard, Côtes-d’Armor and Lot-et-Garonne. Taking this analysis down a notch to the cantonal level would reveal loses in old PCF bastions including the Trégorrois, the Pas-de-Calais mining basin, the Longwy-Villerupt area, the industrial waterfront of the Hérault and Bouches-du-Rhône and even the rural communist terres rouges of the Allier, Cher and Nièvre.

Therefore, Mélenchon’s weak appeal to the dormant old PCF base was compensated – somewhat – by a much stronger appeal to voters in regions outside the PCF’s traditional bases, likely to voters who had not been Communist sympathizers or voters in the past. The map to the left reveals gains in departments which are, for the most part, outside the traditional confines of the PCF’s electoral map. While the map of his raw strength does not really show this, Mélenchon was a much better candidate outside the old PCF bastions.

% vote for F. Bayrou (MoDem) by constituency

François Bayrou‘s map reveals an old but very interesting paradox between a candidate who claims to be the ‘modern’ candidate of post-ideological, Third Way, social liberal and centrist politics but whose basis of support reflects the oldest political map of France – that of the Catholic heartlands and their penchant for Christian democracy. Even if he would like to deny it, Bayrou very much remains the candidate of Christian democracy and the centre-right tradition.

Even more starkly than in 2007, Bayrou’s map – besides a little favourite son appeal in and around his native Pyrénées-Atlantiques – draws up the map of “Catholic France” as described a hundred years by André Siegfried and visible in almost all electoral maps since then. Bayrou’s strongest support can be found, as always, in Brittany (except secularized central Brittany), the inner west stretching from the Cotentin to the bocage vendéen, the southern Massif Central (Cantal, Aveyron, Lozère), the Lyonnais, Savoie and Alsace. He has kept, as in 2007 and in the past, a strong base of support in the rather bourgeois western suburbs of Paris in the Hauts-de-Seine and Yvelines and in other affluent and educated urban and inner suburban areas of the country.

We thus have a candidate whose base has been further reduced and marginalized to the core heartlands of French Christian democracy and Catholicism. It is not necessarily an electorate of devout, religious, church-going Catholics but rather an electorate of occasionally practicing Catholics who have nonetheless grown up and been socialized in a “Catholic tradition” and have retained the political markers of such a tradition: centrism, humanism and Christian democracy.

The north of France – too secularized, too poor and too industrial – and the Mediterranean coast – too secularized and too demographically unique – appear as ‘dead zones’ for the candidate of the MoDem. Similarly, he is rather weak in left-leaning rural areas, be they in southwestern France or in far more proletarian Picardy. His appeal in areas where Marine Le Pen performed best is minimal, except perhaps Alsace which continues to mix, paradoxically, strong far-right tendencies with a resilient centrist vote (which is pretty right-wing).

Compared to 2007, Bayrou generally lost the most support in (a) those regions where he had done best back then – which are also those where his results this year remain the highest but also (b) large urban areas. The losses in urban areas probably reflect the loss of more centre-left voters who had preferred Bayrou to the PS’ 2007 candidate, while the losses in the regions where he had done best have apparently been fairly favourable to Hollande but also to Sarkozy.

Towards the runoff and the future

François Hollande goes into the runoff as the overwhelming favourite. Boosted by his first round success, he sails into the runoff campaign with the wind in his sails and rather few big clouds on the horizon. His first round campaign was able to play both to his left-wing bases’ anti-Sarkozyst demands and to the centre. Unlike Sarkozy who, as explained above, led an unsuccessful first round campaign both ill-suited for an incumbent and for a presidential election of this nature, Hollande understood that this election – despite the appearances – would be decided in the centre.

Hollande does not need to really re-evaluate or alter his campaign in any significant way. He can afford to not bend over sideways to desperately appeal to those who voted for Marine Le Pen, or at least he can content himself with vague rhetoric which both acknowledges the presence and demands of Le Pen’s voters without frightening centrists and moderates away. He can continue to surf on the wave of anti-incumbency which is both national and international right now. He does not really care if he wins “by default” as some variables indicate and as many observers seem to think.

The reward which lies at the end of the road – defeating Sarkozy, an unpopular incumbent hated by the left – will prove a big enough lure for the vast majority of Mélenchon’s voters who expressed an ideological, semi-protest vote in the first round but who will turn around to vote for Hollande with little afterthoughts in the runoff. Mélenchon himself as basically endorsed Hollande, and while there might be some unease on the ‘left of the left’ about Hollande’s qualities and ideas, it would take a lot of disagreements and unease for one of Mélenchon’s voters to sit out the runoff rather than vote, even if with some remorse, for Hollande, who could (will?) defeat Sarkozy – a thing which remains a major factor of unity on the left behind the PS candidate.

Few of Mélenchon’s voters will even consider voting for Sarkozy (not more than 3-5% polls say) and only 10-15% of his first round voters will probably sit out the runoff. The left, united by the prospect of ousting ‘Sarko’ and the attraction of powers after ten years in the ditch, is fully united behind Hollande. While the possibility that a lot of Mélenchon’s voters could vote for Hollande only by default could spell trouble down the road for a President Hollande, that danger is not really evoked much at this point. Eva Joly’s small electorate can be counted on to be very loyal to Hollande: the Green electorate has been amputated of its most centrist elements and its remnants are all pretty left-leaning and thus very favourable to Hollande.

Hollande’s lead is so big – 54 vs 46 or something along those lines (Mitterrand’s 1988 margin!) – that it would take a disaster for him to tumble. His weaknesses remain his (lack of a) presidential stature and his economic/fiscal policies. Sarkozy likely understood this when he came up with the desperate idea of holding three debates, an idea which Hollande’s team probably turned down in part because of fears that so many debates represented stumbling blocks for him. His performances in the PS’ primary debates had been neither good nor bad, allowing him to maintain his advantage and remain above the fray. In a one-on-one encounter with Sarkozy, who had clearly dominated the 2007 debate with Royal, he could prove vulnerable to Sarkozy’s potential line of attack on his economic policies or his foreign policy credentials. However, it would take a knock-out win for Sarkozy in the scheduled May 2 debate for there to be a major game-changer. Hollande is riding so high that he can content himself with a mediocre performance, in which he is not too weak but without a real need for him to score a game-changing knock-out blow on Sarkozy. Debates since 1974 have not really had major, decisive impacts on the election and it is unlikely that this year’s debate will prove an exception to the rule.

While Hollande swims on with ease, Sarkozy is like a toddler in a deep ocean, struggling to stay afloat and desperately clinging to any piece of wood he finds to remain afloat. Marine Le Pen’s success in the first round is a major defeat for Sarkozy, but he and his team see Marine’s voters as their last remaining escape route. The decision of the Sarkozyst high command has thus been to tack heavily to the right, and bet everything on her voters. The entire Sarkozy campaign seems to be destined at appealing – pandering – to the FN’s electorate. He is in a position similar to that of Jacques Chirac in 1988, whose weak first round result combined with Jean-Marie Le Pen’s very strong showing (14%) had shoved his runoff campaign into the ditch, desperately attempting to appeal to Le Pen’s voters while Mitterrand sailed on, unabated and above the fray.

However, the UMP apparently has not read the tea leaves and still assumes that the FN electorate has not changed much since 2002 or even the 1980s. As noted above, Marine Le Pen’s electorate this year is much more working-class and populaire than that of her father ten years ago and is a planet away from the first FN electorate of 1984. The UMP believes that rhetoric of low taxes and less state regulation on businesses, combined with old rhetoric based on conservative fears of the left, will be a good starting point for FN voters. That might have been true in 1984, but the FN’s electorate of marginalized exurban middle-classes and proletarians is not really overly concerned by keeping taxes low and getting the state out of business. Those issues, likewise that of cutting the debt, does not feature prominently in the preoccupation of FN voters. Rather, they are concerned about economic issues such as wages or purchasing power on which the UMP does not have a very strong record or playbook to run on.

Secondly, the UMP has decided to woo FN voters by tacking heavily to the right on issues such as immigration and security, resorting to openly nationalistic and protectionist rhetoric. Yet, while a lot of FN voters are undeniably concerned about immigration and security, it either reflects a certain disapproval of government policy on those matters or is tied in with other fears and worries. Furthermore, FN voters in the past have shown countless times that they are not big fan of mainstream politicians who desperately pander towards them in a last-straw bid for their votes. They are said to prefer the “original” to the “copy” and past experience shows that most of the mainstream right’s attempts to appeal to them through rhetoric rather than actual action or policy have fallen flat on their faces.

The sociology of the 2012 FN vote is more inclined towards depoliticization, anti-establishment/anti-system politics and abstention than it is towards conservatism, law and order and traditionalism. Sarkozy did manage to make inroads with Marine Le Pen’s electorate beginning in the first round, and roughly 45-50% of her first round voters will likely vote for Sarkozy in the runoff. Predictably, those FN voters most inclined towards voting for Sarkozy in the runoff are disproportionately concerned by immigration/security and are of higher socioprofessional status (CSP+). It is probable that those rural or exurban voters who voted for Marine will vote for Sarkozy in the runoff, largely because the left’s appeal to the périurbain subi remains fairly weak, for a variety of reasons.

However, 45-50% transfers remain insufficient for Sarkozy who had still managed to get about 63% of Le Pen’s voters in 2007 (despite, already, a largely populaire FN electorate). He would need about two-thirds of her first round voters in order to have a shot at winning. In a year like 2002 or even 2007, that would have been possible, but the new nature of the FN electorate this year makes it very tough for Sarkozy to retrieve his 2007 appeal to FN voters. The abundance of the FN vote in working-class areas denotes a very anti-system vote which is hardly of the old Poujadist/conservative variety. In regions such as Picardy or the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the FN vote probably also includes a large element of gaucho-lepénisme which will be inclined towards voting for Hollande or not voting at all. Royal won only 12% or so of Le Pen’s voters in 2007, but this year Hollande could win about 20-25% of Le Pen’s first round voters in the runoff. In a lot of regions, the high FN vote reflected a fear of marginalization and a cry of despair from what Marine Le Pen called the “invisibles” of rural and exurban France. Nicolas Sarkozy tacking to the right with open efforts to woo FN voters with tough talk on immigration and security probably won’t be enough for a lot of these voters whose vote for Marine Le Pen represents a clear rejection of Sarkozy and his government.

At the same time, Sarkozy’s runoff strategy – not noticeably different from his rather unsuccessful first round strategy – really continues to place him in a ditch where any gains on his right can be cancelled out by loses on the centre. Indeed, besides Marine’s voters, Bayrou’s voters – though not as electorally important – remain the other main electoral clientele which is really up for grabs. On paper, Bayrou’s narrower base indicates that he has lost of a lot of his more “unorthodox” 2007 voters who came from the left, and this narrower base reduced to the Catholic heartlands and an old centrist base should be more favourable to Sarkozy. However, the geographic analysis above showed that Sarkozy did gain a not insignificant number of Bayrou’s 2007 voters, meaning that Bayrou not only bled to his left (to Hollande) but also to his right (to Sarkozy), indicating that rather than returning to an old UDF centre-right base he rather was confined to a more centrist, third way base.

In the 2007 runoff, Sarkozy had tied or narrowly lost Bayrou’s first round voters with Royal. This year, as Bayrou’s support dwindled, polls picked up a net strengthening of Sarkozy’s runoff standing with Bayrou’s first round voters – returning Sarkozy to where he stood in 2007 with Bayrou’s voters (35-40%). This is certainly a bit of good news for Sarkozy, but it is far from enough. Given Bayrou’s smaller and less left-wing base this year, he should – on paper – be stronger with Bayrou’s voters than he was in 2007. Furthermore, the latest polls have shown that Hollande has managed to erase Sarkozy’s narrow advantage with Bayrou’s voters, probably the result of moderates and centrists fleeing as a result of Sarkozy’s balls-to-the-wall wooing of Le Pen’s voter. The danger for Sarkozy is that his very right-wing runoff campaign will scare away centrist voters – perhaps not directly to Hollande but rather towards abstention. At the same time, Hollande continues to sail away, capable of playing to his left and to the centre without endangering any of his inroads with voters on those sides.

Bayrou has said that he would announce his intentions on May 3. In 2007, he had not endorsed any of the two candidates (despite Royal being rather desperate for his support) but had taken a pretty anti-Sarkozyst position. While his announcement is unlikely to have a major impact on the evolution of vote transfers, an endorsement of Hollande or a 2007-like position (which is probably likeliest) would have a very bad effect on Sarkozy’s momentum right after the debate on May 2.

Sarkozy pulling off a win is not impossible – but if he does so, it would make him the comeback kid of the century. He is the heavy underdog in this contest, and as noted above, he has so many weaknesses and his strategy is so imperfect that his reelection would be a true miracle for the right. Sarkozy still has things going in his direction: his more “presidential” stature, his strength on foreign affairs/diplomacy, a certain charisma, undeniable stamina and energy and an alleged debating advantage over Hollande. But he made use, more or less, of most of his strengths during the campaign but did not profit much from him. Anti-incumbency and anti-Sarkozysm in particular remains too widespread and too solidly implanted in France and on the left (and even centre and far-right) for him to have a real fighting chance at reelection. Even the narrative of Hollande being the president-in-waiting will probably not demotivate the left (‘why vote if the outcome is basically ensured?’), because anti-Sarkozysm remains a very powerful magnet on the left.

The recent revelations about Gaddafi’s illicit bankrolling of Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign could potentially play the role of a bombshell ‘October surprise’ which further cripples Sarkozy’s hopes. It remains to be seen if this scandal could shift any voters or if it will only solidify votes on the left without having a major impact on softer right-wing voters.

Hollande, at this point in time, seems likely to win with about 53 or 54% of the vote, which would be a far wider margin than the last time an incumbent got shafted (1981) and which would be, in the wider realm of things, a very comfortable margin. He could be approaching the margin by which Sarkozy won in 2007 or even the margin by which Mitterrand trounced Chirac in 1988. In the eventuality of a left-wing victory, it is very likely that the left would sweep the legislative elections in June.

The most interesting impact of a left-wing victory would actually be on the right, where internal tensions and conflicts have been shut off with some success during the campaign, but where there are a lot of dynamites and bombs which are ready to be ignited. Already there have been signs of brewing public battles within the UMP, with centrist figures of the UMP such as Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Chantal Jouanno making clear that they feel “uncomfortable” with Sarkozy’s right-populist campaign strategy which all but ignores centrist voters. Within the UMP, the lines of a future battle featuring the incumbent party boss – Jean-François Copé, who has for all intents and purposes announced his candidacy for 2017, and his opponents which notably include François Fillon, Alain Juppé, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Laurent Wauquiez and Xavier Bertrand. Copé is an ambitious and Machiavellian figure who is accused by his opponents of being sectarian and authoritarian.

In good part, being in power ever since its foundation has helped the disparate coalition that is the UMP stick together, because there could be a bit of power for everybody. Sarkozy was careful in pleasing most coalitions within the UMP and playing them against each other, and it seems as if Copé is in a similar position. As a former chiraquien, he can count on the support of a few remnants of this old but leaderless politically. He has followed Sarkozy in his shift to the right, and could count on the support of the fairly structured but not institutionally prominent droite populaire faction. However, he faces a potentially bloody succession battle to fully take over the party. Out of power, the UMP faces potential implosion if the more centrist/centre-right factions decide to walk out. But the centrist and ‘humanist’ factions of the UMP are too disparate, too divided, too weak and too leaderless to be able to form a cohesive new movement or even political party. Copé remains in a strong position as party boss, and other constraints suggest against a full implosion of the UMP.

The FN’s strong result, as noted above, places the right back into the unfavourable spot it found itself in right after the FN’s emergence in 1983-1984 and after its decisive role in the 1997 legislative and 1998 regional elections. In the latter case, the eternal question of “what do we do with the FN” led to the first division of the UDF and threw the right into disarray as it divided itself over whether the FN should be shunned or if mini-alliances of sorts with the FN would be a better idea. There have already been the first inklings of internal divisions over this issue, and things should hardly get any calmer after a potential defeat on May 6. However, the FN remains in a traditional ‘UMPS’ stance rejecting any deals with either left or right, which could perhaps calm the debate down on the UMP’s side a bit. The FN will remain comfortable in its stance as an opposition anti-system force, and some will fancy a left-wing government as a golden opportunity to assert the FN as the main force of the opposition. Marine Le Pen’s dédiabolisation efforts were probably the first step in a bid to widen the FN’s base and rid itself of the baggage accumulated over the years by the old patriarch.

The centre, after Bayrou’s weak result and the total flop of the Borloo-induced bid to recreate the UDF, finds itself further marginalized, divided as ever and lacking a leader capable of uniting all of its elements. The NC faces tough days ahead if a vague rose in June claims the lives of a few of its sitting members, and no prominent figure in the NC is capable of uniting the centre. Borloo’s Radicals fell from their pedestal as soon as they climbed onto it, and they destroyed their chances of being at the forefront of the recreation of the UDF through the ARES experiment. The MoDem will be weakened further by Bayrou’s poor showing and it remains a bit ‘outside’ the traditional centre-right universe to partake in any recreation of the UDF. It also faces division, as some of its more left-leaning members are already tempted to join the Hollande bandwagon while others (Bayrou, de Sarnez) remain on a centrist position while a few remain closer to the centre-right. Jean Arthuis’ AC is a party more suited to the world of the Third Republic than to 2012. Ironically, the most prominent leaders of a potential centre-right UDFish force are currently within the UMP and their RPR roots make them more reluctant to leave the UMP (a RPR 2.0): Juppé, Fillon, NKM and even Wauquiez.

We shall meet up again for a runoff which will hopefully remain pretty exciting or at least interesting on May 6. In any case, I will be liveblogging the results of the runoff vote again throughout the day on May 6. As in the first round, I hope that you come a-plenty and make for lively and interesting discussion. Even if the results aren’t interesting – we’ll find a way to make them interesting.

Election Preview: France 2012 Q&A

Presidential elections will be held in France on April 22 and May 6, 2012. The President of France, who holds significant powers granted that he controls a parliamentary majority, is elected for a five-year term, renewable once. France uses a traditional runoff system, where a candidate must win 50%+1 of the votes in the first round to be elected outright, or else the top two candidates in the first round proceed to a runoff held two weeks later. France has held eight direct presidential elections since 1965, and in none of these eight contests has a candidate ever won an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first round.

Thanks to all readers for their interesting questions concerning the 2012 presidential election or the world of French politics in general. Without further a due, here come to answers to the questions which have been asked thus far. I’ll answer questions from readers until, well, the runoff or even further.

What explains Melenchon’s rather sudden surge in support?

This has been an issue which even French political scientists have struggled to answer. His surge was rather sudden, and took pollsters, observers and foreigners by surprise. His surge in support, alongside Nicolas Sarkozy’s gains since he announced his candidacy, are really the two main significant trends of this rather stale campaign.

I tried to answer, in detail, a similar question in this post on my blog dedicated to French elections. To summarize what I said in that post, I attribute the surge to these three factors: his personality, his rhetoric and outside factors.

Firstly, Mélenchon fits the qualities which all successful candidates usually tend to have: charisma, a talent for the oratory arts, dynamism and an ability to convey his message clearly and forcefully. In the French media, for example, Mélenchon is commonly referred to as a tribun de la gauche, tribun being a very good word to describe a charismatic political speaker like Mélenchon. In contrast, the Socialist candidate – François Hollande – has not really been able to shake off an image of him as “soft” or boring in a traditional, moderate style. A lot of left-wing voters may have shifted more to the left as a result of their hatred for Sarkozy, and they may tend to find Hollande’s moderate pragmatism a bit off-putting or ‘soft’ in a time of economic crisis which they believe warrants radical solutions comparable to the economic and fiscal measures proposed by Mélenchon.

Secondly, as touched upon above, Mélenchon’s rhetoric is appealing to anti-system/anti-establishment voters. Political scientists in France since the 2005 referendum on the European constitution have taken to speaking about a fundamental divide between the “elites” – urban, young and educated, socially liberal, tolerant, pro-European and the “people” – suburban-exurban or rural, older, less educated, poorer, more working-class and conservative on issues such as immigration and skeptical of European construction. Unsurprisingly, the FN has been the party of choice for most of the “people”, but in 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy had skillfully scripted a similar appeal to the “people” – or what a recent Ipsos study called “the weakened peripheral France”. Mélenchon’s “new” supporters – those who came around to him during the surge – are rather likely to fall in the latter category.

With the economic crisis, there is a certain demand in France – especially on the left – for a candidate who speaks in tough terms about the banks (or the ‘banksters’ as the Greek have taken to saying), high earners (perceived as not paying their fair share), tax evaders (a lot of wealthy French artists or singers tend to take their money abroad, as do a few high earners), austerity measures (unpopular because of their impact on wages or welfare) and defense of social policies or the welfare state. Mélenchon’s tough rhetoric – which includes concrete proposals including a 20% hike in the minimum wage, a ’100%’ tax bracket on revenues above €360,000 and a cap on maximum corporate earnings – tend to speak well to “the people”. It is fairly symbolic that Nicolas Sarkozy has felt the need to advocate a tax on ‘fiscal exiles’ or tax evaders, an idea originally proposed by  Mélenchon.

As I noted in the aforementioned post, an Ipsos poll showed that 31% of Mélenchon’s voters cited “a desire to reflect my discontent” as one of their three reasons for voting for him – which is quite a bit higher than all voters combined (23%) but still way below the same number (46%) for Marine Le Pen’s voters. On top of that, Mélenchon’s voters rarely cited a rejection of other candidates as a motivator but were very likely to cite agreement with his ideas or proposals as a reason for leaning towards him. On a final note on this topic, Marine Le Pen remains the top candidate for those who fall in this “people” category popularized by researchers. The composition of Mélenchon’s base is far less proletarian than her base (it is also far less proletarian than the PCF’s electorate in, say, 1981, when the PCF polled 15%). In fact, Mélenchon’s core base has been with a type of fairly “well integrated” petite bourgeoisie made up of public servants and government/public employees (teachers, social workers etc). He has performed well both with ouvriers (manual workers), intermediate-grade folks and managerial-higher professional categories (granted that they are in the public sector).

Finally, in terms of “other factors”, we can cite the media narrative about this election (and its impact on voters) and an ability to unite the “left of the left”. The media narrative about this election is about how Hollande is the big favourite, not a sure winner but a likely winner at least, who will certainly place first or second in the first round and enter the runoff as the favourite given his sizable poll lead (if you believe polls, he could surpass Mitterrand’s 1988 margin against Jacques Chirac). I won’t touch on Hollande’s strong demographics, but rather his (few) weaknesses: on his left. He was not the “left-wing candidate” in the open primary, and there used to be some worries on the left of the PS about his commitment to “left-wing values” or something along those lines. Following the primary, some of the left-wingers lukewarm about Hollande may have come around to supporting him (party unity, ability to win). However, they may have been flirting with Mélenchon following Hollande’s fairly low-key and inaudible campaign as of late. The narrative and appearance of Hollande’s inevitability makes it “safe” for these voters to vote their heart (Mélenchon?) in the first round but back Hollande without too much reluctance in the runoff. Polls shows that about 85% of Mélenchon’s voters will vote for Hollande over Sarkozy in the runoff.

The other “other factor” is the new-found unity of the ‘left of the left’ behind Mélenchon. For sure, a few hardcore left-wing partisans dislike Mélenchon who they still see as a Jospin cabinet minister and a Socialist masquerading as a leftie. But he has managed to appeal to a majority of those who voted for Olivier Besancenot and perhaps even José Bové and Arlette Laguiller in 2007. As we will find out on April 22, a lot of the votes cast for Besancenot (like Arlette in the past) were not cast by hardcore partisan Trots but rather by left-wing and/or protest voters who voted for them based in good part on his personality. The ‘left of the left’ in France, since 2002 if not earlier, has been a chaotic mess. A mish-mash of obscure ideological battles, disagreements over the best direction for the movement and above all personality and ego clashes have made it divided, almost impossible to unite. The PCF-driven attempt to nominate a common “anti-liberal left” candidate in 2007 amounted to naught, as the far-left (old LCR and LO) felt that it was a PCF shenanigan and everybody else didn’t like the idea of losing a primary. The ‘left of the left’ had five candidates in 2007: Besancenot, Arlette, an obscure far-leftist from the PT (Schivardi), the PCF’s disastrous boss Buffet and Bové. This year, with the strong personalities of Besancenot and Arlette gone, it appears as if Mélenchon has achieved the impossible unity of the ‘left of the left’.

Mélenchon has also taken support which once flirted with Marine Le Pen, François Bayrou and probably Eva Joly. The aforementioned post explores all these issues in more detail, alongside the inter-connected old myth of PCF voters flowing to the FN.

According to the Guardian Le Pen’s FN is leading among young voters, but considering that most French Muslims would not be voting for her and among youths Muslims and other minorities is higher in proportion than among the population generally, how many “native” French youths are supporting Le Pen?

A poll by CSA showed Marine Le Pen leading the pack among voters aged 18 to 24 with 26% against 25% for Hollande, 17% for Sarkozy, 16% for Mélenchon and 11% for Bayrou. Compared to a previous poll they had done with the same voters back in late 2011, Marine gained 13 points while Hollande lost 14. Mélenchon gained 11. I will believe this poll when I see its finding corroborated by other polls and by the serious exit polls on April 22. CSA is not one of the best pollsters out there, and has a knack to come out with ‘shock’ polls or outlier numbers. Ifop’s rolling polls have not shown Marine particularly overperforming her national numbers (15-16%) with young voters. Exit polls in past elections have not shown that the FN does particularly strongly with young voters. Her father won 16% with them in 2002, against 14% apiece for Chirac and Jospin. In 2007, he took 7% and in 1995 he had won 17% with them. OpinionWay’s exit poll for the 2010 regional elections showed the FN getting 12% with them, only one point above its national average. Turnout is a big variable with young voters, who are some of the least prone to turn out. In the regional elections, only 33% of them voted. In 2002 – whose record low turnout overall (73%) might be where turnout will be this year (if not lower) – 37% of young voters (18-24) did not vote.

It is not totally unfathomable that Marine Le Pen could perform well with a certain category of young voters – those who are not university students or grads, but rather those who are unemployed youths living in low-income areas. If this category bothers voting at all, Marine Le Pen might carry a special appeal to them in a way which neither Hollande and Sarkozy can match (but which Mélenchon could). She is probably a more ‘appealing’ candidate to these voters because she is much younger and has a slightly less ‘harsh’ image than her father whose appeal to young voters might have been stymied by his age and ‘old ways’ of doing campaigns and politics. Yet, I still have a very hard time seeing her overperform her national average by 10 points or more with voters aged 18-24, when there is no indication that her support has collapsed with the FN’s traditionally strongest age groups: middle-aged voters.

It is true that French Muslims are overwhelmingly young and, in the general young population, do make up a larger percentage than they do in the wider total population. Yet, French Muslims are a smaller share of the total electorate and an even smaller part of the ‘regular’ electorate. A lot of them are not registered voters, either because they are not French nationals or because they have not signed up to vote. Voter turnout, furthermore, is often low – in some cases very low – within the French Muslim population. Those who do vote are overwhelmingly left-wing.

How are French Protestants voting in this election?

Protestants make up about 2.5% of the total French population and a similar share of the electorate. There are, basically, two significant geographical concentrations of Protestants in France: in Alsace (Bas-Rhin especially) where most are Lutherans and in the southwest (Lozère, Gard, Haute-Loire, Aveyron, Ardèche), where most are Calvinists. Despite their small size in the overall population, their voting patterns are far from homogeneous over the territory.

The differences between Protestant and Catholic voters are fairly easily perceptible in both of these regions, but in different ways. In Alsace, the denominational cleavage has become significantly weaker than it was in the 1950s (when it was very stark). However, it has been shown that Alsatian Protestants are more likely to vote for the FN and, in the past, for Gaullists than their Alsatian Catholic counterparts who were far more likely to vote for Christian democratic candidates (MRP, UDF) than Protestants were. This was particularly true in the 1950s up until the 1980s, but the cleavage is far less tenuous nowadays. Yet, Protestant areas in Alsace still tend to be marked by stronger results for the FN than demographically similar Catholic municipalities. In some cases, Protestants vote in slightly larger numbers for the left in Alsace than Catholics do, but they remain largely right-wing in their overall political orientation. Religion likely plays a role in explaining why Protestants are more inclined to vote for the far-right, but their demographic nature in rural areas obviously plays a major role in their voting behaviour: most tend to be working-class.

In sharp contrast, the Protestant regions of the Cévennes mountains in southwestern France are very solidly left-wing. Calvinists in these areas, historically a persecuted minority (revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the terreur blanche) sided very quickly with the Revolution and the creed of religious freedom and tolerance. They have remained, since then, very loyal to the left – the PS in particular, in rarer cases the Communists. The Protestant-Catholic divide remains very perceptible in departments such as Lozère.

An Ifop poll (though on a small sample of 410 Protestants) recently showed that Protestant voters would vote in larger numbers for Sarkozy than the overall population. With Protestants, Sarkozy scored 33.5% (+5 on the overall population) against 22.5% for Hollande, 16.5% for Bayrou (+4.5 on the total population) and 14% for Marine Le Pen. In the ‘east’, Protestants placed Sarkozy in first with 35% to Marine Le Pen’s 28%, with Bayrou in third at 19% and Hollande pulling only 13%. Yet with Protestants in the ‘south’, Hollande won 37% to Sarkozy’s 31% and Bayrou’s 13%. This poll seems a bit too slanted towards the right, especially in the case of the ‘southern’ subsample.

How are Harkis (Algerian native loyalists) voting?

The political preferences of Harkis tend to be lumped in with those of pieds-noirs, the European settlers in Algeria who were resettled in France fifty years ago. I wrote a piece on my other blog which included some reflections on the voting preferences of pieds-noirs 50 years later. A poll by Ifop for the Cevipof in January showed that Marine Le Pen narrowly led the field among those voters with 28% against 26% apiece for Hollande and Sarkozy. In 2007, the study found that 31% had voted for Sarkozy against 20.5% for Royal and 18% for Le Pen. The political preferences of pieds-noirs have often been stereotyped as being overwhelmingly lepeniste. From this stereotype, people also like to explain away the FN’s strength in PACA and the rest of the riviera by laying it all on the voting preferences of the pieds-noirs. This is not quite the case: pieds-noirs are not homogeneous in their voting preferences nor are they a significant enough share of the population in the lepeniste regions of the southeast to shape their political profiles single-handedly.

There have been no specific studies on the harkis, but it seems to be assumed that they vote similarly to the European pieds-noirs, which could make them the only significant French Arab group which votes in significant numbers for the far-right. For harki voters, the issue of ‘recognition’ (recognition by the state that France abandoned them in 1962) is a touchy but important political issue in every election. 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. More recently, he once again mentioned similar issues.

In the political geography of France, we see that unlike in most English-speaking countries, you don’t have much of an urban-rural divide, rather both left and right have strongholds in both the city and the country. It is also my impression (unverified) that politics are a lot less regional than in other countries. Is this true, and if so why?

It is true that the urban-rural divide is not as important in France as it is in the United States, the United Kingdom or Canada. There has been an increasing divide between urban and rural areas in recent years, as urban areas tend to shift to the left (Paris is a great example) while a lot of rural areas (especially in eastern or northern France) shift to the right. However, some of the left’s strongholds are rural areas (the Limousin, Midi, parts of Aquitaine) while the right can still perform very well in core urban areas unlike the Republicans in the United States or even the Conservatives in other Anglophone countries.

The urban-rural cleavage has been a determinant of voter behaviour, but the fact is that it has never really been the key factor in shaping voter behaviour. Religion, land ownership, class and political traditions have traditionally been the top determinants of voter behaviour in (rural) France.

Religion – specifically the divide between clerical devout Catholics and secular voters – has played a major role in shaping some of the main trends in French electoral geography which persist to this day. ‘Clerical’ voters, be they rural or urban (most were rural), voted heavily for the right. ‘Anti-clerical’ voters formed the backbone of the republican parties and later the Radicals and subsequent left-wing parties. Voters with no religion are overwhelmingly left-wing to this day, church-going Catholics are still heavily slanted in favour of the right. The role of religion as a determinant of the vote has weakened in recent years with secularization since the 1970s, as the inner west and especially Brittany so eloquently shows. But a lot of the political traditions in rural regions remain shaped by religious traditions. The old Southwest has long been the hotbed of anti-clerical and Masonic political sentiments in France (alongside other political sentiments, including anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian streaks), and remains one of the most solidly left-wing regions in France. On the other hand, in the same region, the very religiously inclined herding plateaus of the Aveyron, Cantal or Lozère remain very conservative.

Land ownership has often gone hand-in-hand with class and religion, but has been the other main factor in shaping the political profiles of rural France. Smallholders – farmers who owned their land – were in general the biggest supporters of the republican cause, out of opposition to the aristocratic and authoritarian leanings of the old right. When they were outside clerical regions, sharecroppers or tenant farmers in large properties could be counted upon to harbour some socialist or communist tendencies. When they were in clerical regions, large property often went hand-in-hand with monarchist or conservative traditions. My political profile of the Vendée explores these issues in more details.

Class is not as important in France as it is in the UK or Scandinavian countries, but poverty and social standings has shaped and still shapes political cultures and opinions in France. Religion still trumped class – as Brittany or the inner west showed until recently – but when poverty was found in anti-clerical regions, socialism and later communism could be promised a fertile ground. Class became more important in the post-war era, as the political battle clearly became a fight between “Marxism” (PCF, Socialists) and non-Marxism (right, Radicals, centre). The first constitutional referendum in 1946 is often thought to be a major realigning vote. In this referendum, anti-clerical but fairly well-off rural and urban areas (Champagne or the Beauce) realigned with the right. Anti-clerical but poorer or more anti-system regions (the Southwest, Limousin, Berry, Bourbonnais, parts of Aquitaine) remained aligned with the left, the Socialists being the natural heirs of a left-wing Radical party.

Settlement patterns have also played their role in forging voting patterns. Areas of nucleated rural settlements were more favourable to the left, perhaps because the concentration of voters in a nucleated setting made the exchange of ideas easier. On the other hand, areas of dispersed settlement were more likely to favour the right, as voters remained geographically separated, making the exchange of ideas and views harder.

In the 1960s, the political leanings of urban areas could generally be summarized fairly easily: a bourgeois and right-leaning urban core surrounded by a proletarian hinterland, with solid Communist or left-wing leanings. The image is not so simple anymore. The inner suburbs of most large cities are no longer proletarian in the old sense, but either gentrifying or working poor (employees, low-paying jobs, public servant). Inner cities have shifted to the left as part of a mixed phenomenon of gentrification (eastern Paris or inner suburbs such as Montreuil are great examples) and boboïsation - young professionals who are not too badly off but hold left-libertarian political opinions. Even affluent inner suburbs have begun voting consistently for the left, while the right has made some inroads in some more working-class left-leaning suburban areas.

The divide between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, furthermore, is no longer clear-cut. With exurban growth and rural decline, some rural-looking areas are actually suburban or exurban communities with residents fleeing high inner-city property prices and forced to drive long commutes to large urban areas for work. Agriculteurs - the socioprofessional category made up of farmers who work their own land – barely account for 1% of the French population. A lot of distant rural communities have a population made up of semi-rural low-income working-class employees or manual workers who work in small firms or companies in neighboring towns.

In the 2007 election, there was an unusually strong urban-rural divide. Ségolène Royal outperformed the traditional left in urban areas  - notably Paris – while Nicolas Sarkozy outran the traditional right in a lot of rural areas in eastern France (taking a lot of FN votes). The 2007 election also showed a strengthening of the left in regions such as Brittany with a declining Catholic tradition.

Politics are indeed less regional in France than in other countries. Obviously, each regions have their own political history and traditions but France does not really have well-defined political cultures like that of the South in the United States, Bavaria in Germany or Alberta in Canada. France being the dictionary definition of a centralized nation-state likely plays a major role. ‘Peripheral’ ethnic groups (Alsatian, Breton, Occitan, Basque, Savoyard, Catalan) have been, through government policies since the 1870s, reduced to sad shadows of their former selves or totally eliminated beyond recognition. The lack of any major regional languages besides French (though Alsatian, Breton, Basque and Corsican retain a not-insignificant proportion of speakers) have stymied the growth of ‘regional identities’ comparable to those found in Spain, for example. In the media narrative, furthermore, all talk about elections – even regional elections – are run through ‘national’ lenses – which is not the case in the US, Canada or Spain.

Only Corsica and some overseas territories can be said to form fairly cohesive ‘regional identities’ with political traditions clearly separate from those of metropolitan France. But even in those cases, their regionalism does not measure up to the regionalism found in other countries. The closest we can find to regionalism might be the FN’s strong implantation east of the oft-discussed Le Havre-Valence-Perpignan.

If (and i realize it’s a HUGE if) Mélenchon manages to go to the runoff on April 22nd:
1. Can he win whether it’s against Sarkozy or Hollande?
2. What does that mean in connection to the Greek elections that are being held on May 6th (same day as French runoff)?
3. Is it possible to see a MLP vs. JLM on May 6th?

It is indeed a ‘huge if’ and it would prove an upset equal to or even bigger than Le Pen’s 2002 upset. It would require a lot of things to align for him in the next week, which is of course nearly impossible. Assuming, for a second now, that he does indeed make it as your question asks. I threw together a few simulations based on your questions, which you can see here (vs. Hollande), here (vs. Sarkozy)

If it is against Hollande, he would at best win something like 35% of the vote. Though a lot of right-wingers would not vote, Hollande would receive the bulk of Sarkozy, Bayrou and Marine voters who choose to vote in the runoff. Mélenchon would only win support from the far-left’s two candidates and a bit from Joly.

Against Sarkozy, Mélenchon would probably still lose but would easily clear 40% and win something similar to 44-46% of the vote against Sarkozy. Sarkozy is unpopular, and many Hollande voters would vote for Mélenchon over Sarkozy (as would Joly’s voters). However, it is unlikely that Bayrou’s voters would prove as ready to vote for Mélenchon then they are for Hollande. My scenario is fairly generous in assuming that 20% of Bayrou’s voters could vote for Mélenchon over Sarkozy. There is more uncertainty here, as Mélenchon’s surge has significantly improved his image in the wider realm of public opinion and might – I haven’t checked the numbers – be more popular than Sarkozy currently is. But could Mélenchon hold up his positive image in what would certainly be a very bloody runoff?

A runoff between Mélenchon and Marine is even harder to envision, as it would require both to surge further while Hollande and Sarkozy collapse, benefiting small candidates and Bayrou (but also Marine and Mélenchon). I ran a little scenario here which gives my opinion about how such a runoff would shape up to be. It would probably not result in excessively high turnout, as the far-right being qualified would boost centrist and left-wing turnout while Marine Le Pen’s voters would of course turn out in their quasi-entirety (unlike in a normal runoff where a third will likely not vote). The main uncertainty concerns the behaviour of Sarkozy’s voters. With him winning only 21% of the vote, he would be done to a core right-wing rump but would also have shed almost all FN-UMP swing voters and Le Pen 2002 voters which he had won in 2007. I believe about 55-60% of his voters in such a scenario would vote for Marine Le Pen, though Sarkozy himself would not give any endorsement. Marine Le Pen, however, cannot win a runoff election. She is too polarizing and her image is still too negative. However, a runoff against Mélenchon could be her best chance out of any runoff scenario. She could win anywhere between 40 and 45% of the vote in such a runoff against Mélenchon.

It is hard to see the elections in France having a major impact on the elections being held in Greece on the day of the runoff election. Could the sensation of a Mélenchon-x runoff on May 6 have a non-negligible impact on the Greek elections? It could minimally boost the chances of the anti-austerity left-wing parties there, but the Greek elections will first and foremost be fought around and decided by issues which are much closer to home. That being said, if Mélenchon does indeed qualify for the runoff, it could send shockwaves around Europe and indirectly impact the popular support of similar parties and candidates in other European countries, including Spain or Italy.

 Translated from French: Can the FN place first in certain communes because of Marine Le Pen’s new base?)

There are 36,000 communes (municipalities) in France, and Marine Le Pen will win a lot of those – a lot of which tend to be very small villages with less than 1,000 voters. Her father had won communes – most of them tiny places – in 2007 despite his poor showing that year. He even won two cantons that year. The better question is whether or not she can win a legislative constituency and even a department. Her winning a department depends a lot on the gap which separates her from the first-placed candidate nationally, be it Hollande or Sarkozy. If she does well, with something over 16%, but the gap which separates her from a Sarkozy or Hollande is over 10 percentage points, then she could still not win a single department. If, on the other hand, she does well and the gap between her and first place is fairly small, then she could stand a chance in departments such as the Aisne or Haute-Marne. She will probably place first in her political home base, Hénin-Beaumont, and record a swing above the national average in the Pas-de-Calais and its general region.

Translated from French: In the next legislative elections, could there be surprises? Is a cohabitation possible?

Since the Jospin-Chirac tandem agreed to ‘realign’ the electoral calendar in 2000, legislative elections have become of much less importance and usually confirmations of the result of the presidential election held a month beforehand. The new electoral cycle, with a synchronized presidential and legislative term, has worked to reassert the predominance of the presidential election as the ‘top’ election in France. In this perspective, the next legislative elections should not see any surprises.

In the scenario that Hollande is elected, the PS allied with the left will not struggle too much to win an absolute majority. In the past, the only election held immediately after a presidential election in which the president’s party failed to win an absolute majority was 1988, when Mitterrand’s PS only won a plurality of seats despite Mitterrand’s landslide trouncing of Chirac.

If Sarkozy is reelected, however, there is an outside chance that there will be a cohabitation because of the circumstances in which Sarkozy would win reelection. However, it is still tough to see the electorate turning around in such a rapid fashion to hand somebody the elected a month ago such a stunning rebuke. The idea of cohabitation is fairly unpopular in France, and voters would be reminded of it during the course of the legislative elections’ campaign. Yet, if Sarkozy wins a magical underdog reelection, it probably won’t be through a miraculous improvement of his approval ratings to June 2007 stratospheric levels, meaning that there is a serious chance that legislative elections held in the wake of an underdog Sarkozy win could result in some surprises.

The main things to watch for in these legislative elections would be as follows:

Firstly, turnout. Turnout hit an all-time low in 2007 – 60% – which is not too surprising given the (eventually wrong) vague bleue narrative and the low stakes of the election. This year, following a presidential election which has struggled to motivate voters very much at all, how many voters will be bothered to go out to vote in an election which will, probably, be of very low stakes and even less interesting than the presidential election? It is possible that turnout could descend to catastrophic (for French legislative elections) levels nearing only 50%.

Secondly, in the most likely scenario of a Hollande victory, the overall performance of the left. Will the PS and its close allies win an absolute majority on their own, or will they be in a ‘minority’ situation dependent on either the centre or the Left Front (FG)?

Within the left, and in the context of government formation and relations during a Hollande presidency, the strength of the PS’ allies – notably the Greens – will be very important. In November 2011, the Greens and the PS signed a controversial electoral deal which gives the Greens (who currently hold only three seats) at least 15 seats if not nearer to 25-30 members (enough for a parliamentary group of their own). Some Greens are concerned about the PS’ goodwill in the wake of a humiliating result for their candidate, Eva Joly, on April 22. Some Socialists, including sitting PS deputies who got shafted by the deal, showed their displeasure with the deal (as did some Greens). Some incumbent PS deputies or dissident Socialists in a few constituencies are running against the Green candidate co-endorsed by the Socialists, the most high-profile of these cases being a Parisian constituency where Green leader Cécile Duflot (currently seatless) is running against the incumbent PS deputy who got dumped on the sidewalk by her party as part of the deal with the Greens.

In the broader context of the left, especially in the wake of the potential for a big success by Mélenchon on April 22, the FG will be very eager to try to convert its presidential success into a legislative success. The most recent case of a fairly surprising “presidential success” is that of Bayrou in 2007, and in his case, he totally failed in his attempt translate his presidential result into a strong result in the legislative elections. He failed because he totally misunderstood and misread the nature, makeup, attitude and politics of those who made his success on April 22, 2007. Mélenchon does not appear to be a Bayrou, that is one who overreacts to a presidential success by attempting to “transform” politics altogether. The FG will make the case to voters, especially those who voted for Mélenchon, for the necessity of a strong left-wing bench in the National Assembly to exert pressure on Hollande’s government from the left. I haven’t run through the FG’s candidates in its intricacies to assess their chances, so I cannot expand much on this point.

Assuming Hollande fails to win an absolute majority for the ‘close-knit’ left-wing parties (PS, PRG, Greens) and is dependent on the support of the FG or the centre in the National Assembly, then the old debate of whether or not the FG/PCF should cooperate with the PS and participate in a PS cabinet will come up again. The PCF’s leadership generally looks upon the idea of Communist participation in a PS government quite favourably, but Mélenchon has shown himself to be quite resistant to that possibility. The issue could prove a major source of tension between the PCF and Mélenchon’s friends (the PG), but it is unlikely the PG will emerge from the legislative elections with a significant caucus at all.

The third thing to look out for will be the FN, which will be aiming to regain a foothold in the legislative elections following the slap they received in the 2007 legislative elections which came on the heels of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s poor performance in the presidential election. The electoral system and high likelihood of low turnout all plays against the FN, which will struggle to win a single seat. However, if it is able to win strong results in constituencies through eastern and southeastern France, it could find itself in a make-or-break role for UMP deputies and candidates in the runoff. The probability of low turnout will reduce the number of three-way runoffs - triangulaires, thus removing the terrible shadow of 1997′s  triangulaires de la mort for the right. However, the FN’s strong showing, if it is in the backdrop of something close to a vague rose will inject the old issue of right-FN electoral alliances or unofficial deals into debates on the right as it seeks to rebuild itself after a defeat.

[updated April 18] Could you give some information about the political or personal platforms of the lower tier of candidates?
Why are they standing and who votes for them?
I’m particularly interested in Jacques Cheminade as even detailed accounts of the candidates do not elaborate on him, or even (sometimes) mention him. I have heard he is the Lyndon LaRouche affiliated candidate but what does that mean in terms of French politics and demographics?

The “small candidates” as they are often called are Eva Joly (the Greens-EELV), Nathalie Arthaud (LO), Philippe Poutou (NPA), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (DLR) and Jacques Cheminade (S&P). Presidential elections are the “big” elections, so it is necessary for all parties and movements to try to gain a presence and a voice in the presidential elections. They know they won’t win, but the equal airtime allows them a chance to voice their platforms and get free publicity for their parties or ideas.

Joly didn’t want to be a small candidate and she started off as a second-tier candidate, not a last-tier candidate. But, not being a traditional politician, she led a very poor campaign. Like most Green candidates in presidential elections, she found her base squeezed out by Hollande who appeals to ‘pragmatic’ Greens who vote more “strategically” (against Sarkozy) or by more ‘red’ Greens who have flowed to Mélenchon. She is left with the hardcore of the Greens, more left-leaning than their ‘wider’ electorate (2009 or 2010). As mentioned above, there is a fear that her poor showing will hinder her party vis-a-vis the PS, because EELV is hungry for a parliamentary group (20+ members in the lower house) and for cabinet positions. Her platform takes up the usual Green themes (no nuclear energy, green jobs, sustainability, social justice, democratic reform, decentralization, European federalism, left-libertarianism). She got into deep controversy when she suggested removing the traditional military parade on Bastille Day (July 14). She has been mocked for her Norwegian accent in French, by the likes of Karl Lagerfeld.

Nathalie Arthaud (LO) and Philippe Poutou (NPA) are usually grouped as the “far-left candidates”, which is fair enough given that there are few differences in the platforms of both candidates. Arthaud is the successor of LO’s popular six-time contender Arlette Laguiller, who stepped down from politics after the 2007 election. Traditionally, LO is the more ‘traditional’ of the two Trotskyist-leaning parties in France – it usually sticks to old-style Marxist rhetoric about the class struggle, the bourgeoisie, exploitation of the proletariat. It focuses quasi-exclusively on economic, fiscal, monetary or social issues and does not usually touch issues such as political reform, the environment, foreign policy and so forth. On the other hand, the NPA – which is the successor of the old LCR, and is often presented as “Olivier Besancenot’s party” – has abandoned old Marxist rhetoric in favour of a New Left orientation, though still clearly on the far-left. The LCR usually was the more hippie/modern party out of the two Trot parties. Up until 2007 at least, the LCR had more appeal to non-working class urban voters, young voters and students. The NPA’s policies vis-a-vis economic issues is very much like that of LO, but it mentions environmental issues and political reforms/institutions a bit more.

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (NDA, as he says) is a right-wing ‘paleo-Gaullist’ candidate. Dupont-Aignan is a former UMP member who left the party before the 2007 election to form a new party, Arise the Republic (DLR). NDA is a deputy in the National Assembly and a very popular mayor of Yerres, a suburban town in the Essonne department. He did not run in the 2007 election but ran in the 2009 EU and 2010 regional elections, doing decently for a small party with little funds. NDA’s political views are similar to those of Charles de Gaulle, in that he is fairly Eurosceptic (against the 2005 EU Constitution, for a ‘Europe of nations’), supports an independent foreign policy (getting out of the joint command of NATO) and has a fairly statist/colbertiste economic agenda including re-nationalizing the formerly public electricity and gas companies (EDF/GDF). He supports protectionism to fight outsourcing to foreign countries. It is surprising his candidacy has not done any better, but he likely finds himself squeezed in this “big” contest between the “big” contenders he stands between: Marine Le Pen and Nicolas Sarkozy, both of whom have of course flirted with populism and nationalism/thinly veiled nationalism.

Jacques Cheminade is the “surprise” candidate. Cheminade had already run in 1995, taking 0.3% of the vote. His movement and his ideas are indeed close to those of Lyndon LaRouche, which has led to some disagreements about how to classify him. Most sources classify him and his party on the far-right. Nobody has focused on his ideas, because they are so bizarre and unclear. Most people prefer to make his candidacy the butt of jokes, poking fun at his and LaRouchites obsession about conspiracy theories and their hatred of Elizabeth II, the “drug dealer”. He takes up a lot of LaRouche’s conspirationist views about “the world of finance” and big business, crying out against “the City” and “Wall Street” bankers or the financial oligarchy. He shares the LaRouche movement’s knack for “multinational” type technological programs through nuclear energy. For some reason, he also talks about going to outer space (he is probably concerned that aliens will take him away or something) and development in Africa. Overall, far-right seems like a fair classification but a weird type of technocratic far-right with a concern about New World Orders and black choppers. It is hard to say who are the people who vote for him, but we’ll soon find out, I guess. This post details Cheminade’s ideology and links to the LaRouche movement.

Thanks again to all readers for some great questions. In the lack of a proper preview post per se, I will be more than pleased to answer additional follow-up questions or any other questions from readers about French politics and/or the 2012 election(s) in particular.

Election Preview: France 2012

Presidential elections will be held in France on April 22 and May 6, 2012. The President of France, who holds significant powers granted that he controls a parliamentary majority, is elected for a five-year term, renewable once. France uses a traditional runoff system, where a candidate must win 50%+1 of the votes in the first round to be elected outright, or else the top two candidates in the first round proceed to a runoff held two weeks later. France has held eight direct presidential elections since 1965, and in none of these eight contests has a candidate ever won an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first round.

In the runup to this election, World Elections opens to ground to any questions by interested readers on the topic of French politics and the 2012 elections. All types of questions, ranging from general questions about the candidates and their parties to more specific questions about the impact of this election, the polls, runoff prospects, the trends, the background, the political history of France, voting patterns and voter behaviour or electoral geography are acceptable. Please post your questions in the comments section below, tweet them to me (@welections) or email them to me. In due time – that is, before April 21 – all these questions will be answered in a thorough and accessible manner in this post.

In the meantime, you can read some background to this election by reading these posts on recent elections in France since 2009 or about French political history in general:

2011 Presidential primaries

• PS-PRG open primary second round results and analysis
• PS-PRG open primary first round results and analysis
• PS-PRG open primary election preview/who’s who
• PCF internal primary and EELV semi-open primary

2011 Senatorial elections

• Results and analysis

2011 cantonal elections

• Second round results and analysis
• First round results and analysis

2010 Regional elections

• Second round results and analysis
• First round results and analysis
• The FN vote: a first round analysis at the cantonal level
• Pre-electoral commentary

2009 European elections

• Results and analysis

Political analysis and relevant history

• Glossary of French political terms(Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1962-2012: 50 years after the Évian accords (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1995-2007: The changing face of the French left (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 2007: Jean-Marie Le Pen’s collapse (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1984: Emergence of the FN in the European elections (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1956: the Poujadist movement (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1951: the Gaullist movement (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1946: the MRP and PCF dominant (Mapping French Elections blog)
• 1936: Victory of the Popular Front
• Political Profile of the Vendée (Mapping French Elections blog)
• Political Profile of Savoie (Mapping French Elections blog)

Post all your questions below!

France 2012: PS open primaries (runoff)

The second round of left-wing open primary elections (primaires citoyennes) were held in France on October 16, 2011. These primaries will nominate the candidate of the opposition Socialist Party (PS) and its small ally, the Left Radicals (PRG) for the 2012 presidential elections. All French citizens were eligible to vote provided they pay a symbolic minimum fee of €1 and sign a declaration of vague left-wing values. I had talked about the candidates in a preview post and covered all the results of the first round here.

At the outset of the first round, the frontrunner of the campaign, former party boss François Hollande had come out ahead with 39.2% ahead of 30.4% for Martine Aubry, his main rival and current party boss. Hollande’s showing had been a bit weaker than originally expected, and Aubry’s performance was conversely better than expected. The main surprise of the first round came from the strong showing of Arnaud Montebourg (17.2%), the young standard-bearer of the party’s left and ‘deglobalization’. The party’s 2007 candidate, Ségolène Royal, won only 7% while the young standard-bearer of the party’s right, Manuel Valls, won 5.6%. PRG boss Jean-Michel Baylet won only 0.6%. Aubry’s hopes for the surprisingly open runoff rested on the transfer of Montebourg’s left-wing voters to her candidacy, more left-wing than Hollande’s consensual centre-left candidacy. Support from new voters and a good majority of Royal’s equally left-wing voters was also necessary. However, despite a very aggressive offensive against Hollande from the left (Hollande as ‘inconsistent’, ‘flip-floppy’, ‘unclear-wishy-washy’, ‘the system’s candidate’ or even ‘right-wing’), Aubry’s campaign failed. Royal, surprisingly, endorsed her ex (following the logical endorsements of the centrists Valls and Baylet). Then Arnaud Montebourg, on a personal level, endorsed Hollande, despite his ideas being generally closer to those of Aubry rather than those Hollande. Following these pretty crippling blows, Aubry needed two things to win: that Royal and Montebourg’s voters reject in large numbers the endorsement of their candidate and vote for Aubry instead, and that the runoff sees a major spike in turnout through the heavy participation of non-PS left-wingers (Greens, Communists, far-left) which favoured Aubry more than Hollande. A tall order, but not seen as impossible. Despite Hollande’s big momentum during the entre deux tours, almost all observers predicted a fairly close runoff though with Hollande favoured.

Turnout was, logically, up from the first round. With 9407/9425 polls confirmed (the rest were likely cancelled) 2,860,157 voters turned out, which is 6.6% of registered voters in France (2010 numbers, the same warning applies concerning this data as in round one). This up nearly 199k from the first round, a 7.5% increase. The metropolitan department with the biggest increase was Haute-Corse (+26.85%) followed by Corrèze (+18.77%). The Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Loire and Pyrénées-Atlantiques also saw turnout increase by over 15%. Only Saône-et-Loire (-5.53%) and Tarn-et-Garonne (-0.22%) saw turnout drop.

François Hollande 56.57%
Martine Aubry 43.43%

In the end it wasn’t even close. Hollande, after underperforming in the first round, overperformed most polls in the runoff. While Hollande’s victory was pretty likely, nobody really thought that he’d be able to win by such a big margin – despite the big momentum going his way with the endorsements or personal support of all other four first round candidates.

Turnout increased by just about the right amount for Hollande – a more significant boost in turnout, which would likely have come from the non-PS left, would have been more likely to benefit Aubry. As I had hypothesized following the first round, a good number of potential Hollande voters seemed to have opted out of the first round because he was the big favourite, but they certainly turned out for the runoff. Then his undeniable big mo’ had a rather important effect. It might have pushed wavering voters to his side, and it also could have even taken a few first round Aubry voters who wanted to vote for the winner and guarantee him a large majority.

The most surprising aspect of the vote is also that those who had voted for the other four candidates in the first round followed the endorsements or opinions of their candidate rather loyally. In the case of Valls and Baylet voters, this is not surprising. But more surprising is the case of Royal voters. I had thought they would be more likely to abstain in very large numbers, and a good number probably did – turnout increased by less than the national average (+7.5%) in her Poitou-Charentes base (15-18% for her in the first round), meaning that a good number of her voters didn’t turn out but this was compensated by new voters. But those of her voters who did vote seem to have gone to Hollande by a rather significant margin. Aubry needed those Royal voters to win, and given the likely proximity of Royal voters with the party’s left, it wasn’t a pipe dream. But the numbers, especially in Poitou-Charentes where Hollande beat Aubry by over 30% in all four departments, show that her voters probably went in bigger numbers to Hollande rather than Aubry. In her native Deux-Sèvres, where she had won 18% in the first round, Hollande won 72.2% – one of his biggest wins outside his Limousin stronghold. In Melle, Royal’s home base where she had won 32% in the first round, Hollande won 77.1%. The Poitou-Charentes perhaps isn’t the best of examples: a lot of Royal’s vote here was probably native-girl rather than any ideological proximity to her, and the Poitou-Charentes, like the inner west or Brittany fits the profile of Hollande’s locales: provincial and politically moderate. But it is hard to conduct a good study, given that outsider her home turf, her results were uniformly low to the point where it’s hard to say if the runoff results were influenced by her voters.

Equally surprising was the case of Montebourg’s voters, who were very much the ‘kingmakers’ of the runoff and a crucial block for Aubry to win if she was to win. First off, a good number of them probably did not turn out. Some wavering voters (perhaps some FN voters) voted for Montebourg as a pure ideological or protest vote, and had no affinity for either Hollande or Aubry (in fact, they probably saw them as one and the same). Others were traditional PS voters, but very much on the party’s eurosceptic left and did not vote for either Hollande or Aubry (broadly similar ideologically, especially on Europe or such things). Turnout dropped by 5.5% in his native Saône-et-Loire (56% for him in the first round), which is a pretty huge number considering that turnout overall increased by some 7% in the whole of France. But a lot of his voters did turn out, and they rather surprisingly seem to have followed their candidate’s personal endorsement of Hollande rather loyally – though overall the split might have favoured Aubry by a hair (hard to say). Hollande won Saône-et-Loire by a bigger margin than he won nationally, taking 59.6%. In Montret, where Montebourg had won 97% (and Hollande 3%), Hollande won 69% (turnout dropped from 118 to 106). In Montebourg’s Frangy-en-Bresse bastion, where he had won 85%, Hollande won 61%. Even if Montebourg’s voters, overall, might have favoured Aubry by a hair, it is the very fact that Hollande – the ‘centrist’, ‘flip-flopper’ and ‘soft left’ candidate – could take so much Montebourg voters, voters who voted for the candidate farthest to the left and the proponent of ‘deglobalization’. Though some Montebourg voters expressed anger at Montebourg’s surprising personal endorsement of Hollande (the type of Montebourg voter who would not turn out), a surprisingly large amount of them opted for Hollande despite all of Aubry’s attacks on Hollande from the left. Montebourg himself said that he endorsed Hollande primarily because he came out ahead on October 9 and would have endorsed Aubry if she had come out ahead (in other words, he wants a cabinet position), this feeling of “unite around the favourite” seems to have been shared by a large number of left-wing voters. In the end, more than any questions over Hollande’s socialist pedigree, a lot of undecided or on-the-fence voters voted out of a desire to defeat Sarkozy, which Hollande is widely seen as the most capable of doing.

Aubry also played her runoff campaign very badly. The rapid string of endorsements from Valls, Baylet and particularly Royal didn’t help her, but she had the momentum on her side coming out of October 9 and she allowed herself to completely lost that. True, some of it wasn’t her fault, but she probably hurt her cause more than helped her cause when, starting during the Wednesday debate, she turned to a chaotic, aggressive, left-wing and frankly desperate tone against Hollande. It was hard to evaluate from a neutral perspective how her attacks on Hollande as being “the soft left”, or generally a centrist wishy-washy flip-flopper of questionable left-wing pedigree would help her. She did attack Hollande on his weak-point (that of being too centrist and ideologically unclear), but she did so in an increasingly desperate and ‘wtf’ way. She went off the deep end when she started calling Hollande “the candidate of the system”, which is a pretty amusing thing for the incumbent party boss backed by the party old guard to say. Her poor showing shows that she did not help her case with her attacks on Hollande.

Although the UMP, which resorts every day to more and more awful strawman arguments, would like to make you think that this shows an awfully divided party because “obviously Hollande should have won with 70%” (arguments that make psephologists cry); this is a good result for the party itself. If the race had been close, like Reims in 2008, then there would have been chaos and the personal feuds would have resisted and played out. Instead, such a definite victory is a big boost for Hollande. It gives him a big legitimacy boost and makes the continuation of major feuds unlikely. The Aubry camp certainly isn’t too enthused about the result, but some key Aubry supporters like Fabius have already made their moves to cozy up with Hollande.

One of the things which had very much crippled Royal’s campaign in 2006-2007 despite her landslide closed primary victory was the division of the party between her campaign, led by Royal and her lieutenants; and a rather hostile party establishment and old guard which barely raised a finger for her. Certainly Royal was and remains a very polarizing person within PS circles, and unlike Hollande has a lot of enemies. And the 2006 primary had left its wounds on the party. The old guard came out to help Royal only late in the campaign, and did so with little enthusiasm. While the Aubry camp might be gloomy and hardly enthused about their rival’s victory (and there are clear scars), Hollande has so far handled his victory better than Royal did in 2006. Right after he won, he staged a very powerful and symbolic victory celebration alongside Valls, Royal but also Aubry and Fabius. The danger for him and the PS remains a division of the party between the campaign and the party, especially given how the party apparatus is led by one Martine Aubry.

Geographic analysis

Those who hoped for a ‘bluer’ map than that of the first round will be pretty disappointed. Hollande won all departments which had voted for him on October 9, except for the Somme which went to Aubry by a handful of votes. He also picked up St. Pierre et Miquelon, which Baylet had amusingly won. The patterns of the runoff are broadly similar to those of the first round (well, obviously). The map clearly shows Hollande’s solid ‘provincial’ or rural implantation. His support ripples out from his Correzian bastion, which gave Hollande an “African-like” 94%, and extends into the rest of the Limousin and Massif Central to give his map a distinctively chiraquian-pompidolian flair. But he also won strong support in the rest of the left-leaning and rural departments of the old Radical southwest, and polled remarkably well in Royal’s Poitou-Charentais base (not all surprisingly: as I said above, this is a politically moderate region). He also did well in the bulk of Auvergne, the Languedoc-Roussillon (perhaps a frêchiste vote for Hollande against Aubry, who had gone on a crusade against the frêchiste feds of the region) and generally in rural Champagne, Touraine, Berry, Orléanais, Lorraine and even a good part of Bourgogne.

Only the more urbanized and Greenish departments of the Rhône-Alpes, PACA, Ile-de-France and surprisingly Alsace are a bit weaker for him, in general. His support was lowest in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the political home base of Martine Aubry and industrialized Picardy and Haute-Normandie (the latter of which is the political home base of Laurent Fabius).

In the first round, I had noted a rather stark urban-rural divide between Aubry and Hollande, with Aubry being the urban candidate against the ‘rural’ Hollande. The same pattern is replicated in the runoff, though not as pronounced. The gap between Aubry and Hollande in Paris, which Aubry won as in the first round, was smaller than in the first round. Lyon seems to have voted for Hollande, and Strasbourg went to Aubry by only 54 votes. I haven’t found data for Toulouse, Rouen or Metz. The addition of Valls’ very urban first round 6% perhaps played a role here, as did increased turnout. The map in urban areas such as Paris, Lyon and Marseille retain a bourgeois-for-Hollande and poorer people-for-Aubry pattern, though here again it is less pronounced – Hollande won the very left-wing, diverse and low-income 13th in Paris.

Turnout increased the most in the bases of both candidates: both Corrèze and the Nord had turnout up by 15%. Aubryst Pas-de-Calais and Seine-Maritime also had similarly large increases in turnout. As aforementioned, turnout dropped significantly only in Montebourg’s Saône-et-Loire but also, interestingly, by a tiny amount in Baylet’s Tarn-et-Garonne. Probably a handful of PRG voters with little interest in the PS.

Conclusions: Past and Future

4%. That is what Hollande was polling one year ago. Though he rarely trailed in the polls following DSK’s arrest, Hollande did indeed come back from far. When Hollande left the party’s leadership in 2008, he was widely judged as a poor leader, the memories of the 2002 and 2007 presidential defeats fresh in mind. His leadership had been criticized for being too conciliatory and soft: making no enemies, but making no friends. Outside a close circle of supporters (Le Foll, Sapin, Vallini, Le Roux etc), Hollande went through a traversée du désert (a trough) which lasted pretty much until late 2010 or even early 2011. But slowly, Hollande fought back and was determined to win. His reelection as president of the general council of Corrèze in March boosted his profile and he rode on a little wave of momentum to announce his candidacy right after the cantonal elections. Unlike Aubry’s campaign, his was well managed and always at the forefront of events. Aubry seemed to have gone on vacation right after announcing her candidacy in the summer. At first, when DSK was still the prospective favourite, he was slowly rising on a profile of “normal” (and ‘provincial’) president – as opposed to the flashy international IMF-lifestyle of the former IMF director. When DSK was arrested, he surged into the lead and would (by large) only grow his lead as the weeks went. He took a lot of DSK’s potential support – moderate voters in the party’s reformist social democratic wing. His “normal” president stature and image was a serious boost, especially in presenting him as the candidate who was most able to beat Sarkozy (a vote-determinant not to be downplayed), but also against the more ‘elitist’/'system’ Aubry. His ability to stick his ground in the trick runoff campaign pitted against a powerful left flank (Montebourg) raised his credibility in the eyes of the wider public. Some might have thought that his ‘general election’ type of campaign wasn’t appropriate to a primary, but it actually worked out well for him. Set against Aubry’s boring, uninspiring and mismanaged campaign it isn’t a wonder, in the end, that he won like he finally did. To draw a link with American politics, Aubry was a bit the “Clinton” of the contest – longtime politico, apparatus insider support, experienced rough-and-tumble politician and in a position to win easily through their control of the party’s insider network and structures (but who finally led a poor campaign). Hollande, though most certainly not a political newbie or with low name recognition, was a bit the “Obama” of the contest – a bit on the outsides of the current structures, relatively inexperienced (Hollande never served in cabinet), starting out very low in polls but leading an innovative and organized campaign and playing on his strength with the ‘grassroots’ and the broader electorate.

The top echelon of the 2012 field is thus set: Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Marine Le Pen. Hollande is a strong candidate and a threat to Sarkozy. Of the two candidates, he was the strongest against Sarkozy. The blog Sondages 2012, run by a friend of mine, which has a wonderful rolling average of all polling pegged Hollande at 30.4% on October 10 and Aubry at 26.8%. Sarkozy was at 22.7% against Hollande and 23.3% against Aubry. One of Hollande’s main strength, which helped him in this campaign, is his ability to attract centrist and even centre-right voters to his fold. His conciliatory, moderate, reformist social democratic image gives him a stronger base with those voters. The main losers of Hollande’s nomination are the ‘centrist’ candidates: Bayrou, Villepin and Borloo before he dropped out. Bayrou, Villepin and Borloo all performed better in the Aubry scenarios than in the Hollande scenarios. Conversely, those who might stand to gain something out of Hollande’s nomination are those further to the left: Eva Joly (EELV) and especially Jean-Luc Mélenchon (FG). Hollande’s left flank is weaker than Aubry’s, but if he can position Montebourg well, he could cover his left flank and prevent losing some of the more left-wing PS voters to the Greens or Left Front. Hollande, however, does have his weaknesses. His relative inexperience in governance could be used against him, and Sarkozy will probably do so by running on his experience in foreign affairs and on the debt crisis issue. He could use a theme similar to Stephen Harper’s successful “in times of economic trouble, it’s me or chaos” line. His support seems to be based quite a lot on his “normal” president image or similar ‘image’ things rather than deep ideological affiliation, and as such is probably less solid. Sarkozy is a very strong candidate too, and should certainly not be taken for dead. But, with approvals at 35% and an anemic 22% in first round polls and a terrible 40-42% in the runoff, he is certainly in worse shape than any incumbent president of the Fifth Republic were one year out from reelection.

France 2012: PS open primaries 2011 (first round)

The first round of left-wing open primary elections (primaires citoyennes) were held in France on October 9, 2011. These primaries will nominate the candidate of the opposition Socialist Party (PS) and its small ally, the Left Radicals (PRG) for the 2012 presidential elections. All French citizens were eligible to vote provided they pay a symbolic minimum fee of €1 and sign a declaration of vague left-wing values. These ambitious primaries, the first on such a large scale in France, were truly an historic first for the PS and for French politics in general. I had talked about the primaries and the six candidates in a preview post ahead of the first round.

The first round of the primaries were pretty much a success. 2,661,284 voters came out to vote. Using data from the 2010 regional elections (slightly inaccurate as these primaries also included New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and French citizens abroad as well as under-18 members of the PS or PRG’s youth wings), roughly 6.1% of registered voters (2010 numbers) came out to vote. For comparison’s sake, the PS’ candidate in the 2007 runoff against President Nicolas Sarkozy had won nearly 16.8 million votes. In the 2009 European elections, in which the PS hit rock-bottom and won only its core voters, its lists had received 2.8 million votes. It is certainly not record-shattering turnout, but it is a good turnout for the PS. For another comparison, in the closed primaries of 2006, only 179,412 Socialists had voted and in the 2008 election of the PS’ First-Secretary, 232,912 members were registered to vote. The PS said that it had expected 1-2 million voters, so 2.7 million voters is a good figure. And it also brings in €3 million or so… never a bad thing for any political party.

The results were as follows:

François Hollande 39.17%
Martine Aubry 30.42%
Arnaud Montebourg 17.19%
Ségolène Royal 6.95%
Manuel Valls 5.63%
Jean-Michel Baylet (PRG) 0.64%

Hollande, as the polls had predicted, came out comfortably ahead of his main rival, party boss Martine Aubry in the first round. The polls had not messed up, he was the true frontrunner. However, Hollande did not do as well as the polls had predicted, though not in the end by a large margin. His result, 39.2%, is strong but it is under the symbolic ’40% line’ which most polls had predicted he would cross. He has an 8.75% margin over Aubry, which is also slightly less than what the polls had given him, and more importantly it is under the symbolic 10% margin which would have maintained his solid advantage. It is certainly not a defeat or even a major setback for his candidacy, but undoubtedly the slight underperformance on October 9 has broken Hollande’s strong momentum somewhat and changed the dynamics of the runoff. Hollande likely suffered from a demobilization of his potential electorate, which decided not to bother voting given how certain his victory seemed to them on the eve of the vote. The polls in general also underestimated the size of the gauche de la gauche electorate in the broader primary electorate, with the higher than expected turnout of the party’s left-wing playing against Hollande, who was the more centrist of the main candidates.

Martine Aubry won 30.4%, a showing which is a few points better than what polls had given her though not by any means a shocking overperformance. Yet it is for her and her supporters a strong result and, coupled with the smaller than expected gap between her and Hollande (8.75%), will revitalize them ahead of the runoff which is very open-ended. Her strong showing undeniably boosted her supporters’ morale. One of Aubry’s main advantages, especially in the circumstances of this runoff is that she has made herself the standard bearer of the “true left” of sorts, that is a clearer and more offensive left. Hollande’s main weakness is his centrist, feel-good image which makes him appear as a weak-willed, opportunistic and flip-flopping candidate to the party’s left.

Certainly the biggest surprise of this primary and one of the factors which boosts Aubry is the strong showing of Arnaud Montebourg, the young maverick figure of the PS’ left and the vocal proponent of démondialisation. Montebourg’s late surge into third place had been picked up by most pollsters, but the remaining undecideds and late-deciders broke heavily in his favour, meaning that pollsters all underestimated his performance by at least 3-4%. He won 17.2%, a very strong third and a result which, if played correctly, promises Montebourg a bright political future. Montebourg was clearly the only candidate who gained something from the three debates and the only candidate for whom the ‘official campaign’ had a major impact on his numbers (because he led what was probably the best campaign of the 6). Montebourg’s left-wing rhetoric of deglobalization, European protectionism, reindustrialization, institutional shakeup and fighting corruption struck a chord with the gauche de la gauche, which turned out in big numbers on October 9. His left-wing rhetoric appealed to those voters, who, in these times of economic crisis, found his radical leftism quite attractive and saw in him a refreshing change. Ségolène Royal’s campaign was all about appealing to those indignés, but in contrast to Montebourg’s well orchestrated campaign, hers was chaotic, overly populist and sectarian. Montebourg had a clear, well-managed campaign and he was able to defend his ideas with intelligence and charisma – which Royal failed to do.

Ségolène Royal was the major loser of the primaries. For the PS’ 2007 candidate, who had won the 2006 closed primaries in a landslide and had come within 102 votes of winning the party’s leadership in 2008, her phenomenal downfall is very bitter indeed. She had styled herself as the candidate of the indignés, but on this ground she found herself at a loss against Montebourg’s more credible and more reasonable discourse. Her chaotic, erratic and populist discourse of jumbled-up vote-winning goodies and random ideas did not convince. With 7% support she did very poorly, worst in fact than predicted by most pollsters – ironically enough in fact, having gone on a bizarre crusade against the pollsters when they started showing bad numbers for her.

Manuel Valls, with 5.6%, did about as well as a candidate on the PS’ right could expect. There is simply not a large base within the French left for a candidate who campaigns vocally for fiscal orthodoxy, against the 35-hours and against welfare-leeches. The story is a similar one for Jean-Michel Baylet, the sole non-PS candidate in these open primaries, who could not expect to do much better in a primary which was effectively a PS primary. His 0.6% are a paltry showing, but for Baylet, what counted more than the result was just participating to increase his party’s notability and remind the PS that he is a very loyal ally who expects to receive his fair share in upcoming negotiations for legislative seats for 2012.

Geographical analysis

What is fascinating about the map of this primary is how homogeneous Hollande’s support was, and also how the resemblances with internal PS party shenanigans are sparse. True, the map is certainly that of a left-wing primary, as Aubry’s isolated strongholds reveal. But it is quite different from the maps of internal PS party business, elections in which the support of the local federation’s bigwig will sway the whole federation your way. Some departments, like the Nord or Seine-Maritime certainly followed the orientation of the local federation boss. But in a lot of other cases, the endorsement of the local bigwig didn’t have much effect: Aubry lost the Bouches-du-Rhône despite Guérini’s support, Hollande lost in Lyon despite Collomb’s support and Montebourg lost in Guyana despite Taubira’s support. Right off the bat, this makes these primaries much, much cleaner and harder to rig.

Hollande received very homogeneous support throughout France, which is a strength for his candidacy. His strong base of support with provincial elected officials and local notables surely helped, but above all his support shows that he was the candidate of choice for the middle-classes (la France moyenne), employees or small businessmen. He is the candidate of rural France, the small and mid-sized towns and the  Hollande performed best, obviously, in his local stronghold of Corrèze where he received 86% of the votes, a local base which overflowed in a Chiraquian-Pompidolian manner into Haute-Vienne, Creuse, Cantal or Lozère. Hollande also performed well in regions such as the inner west or Brittany, politically moderate regions where the PS has gained in strength recently. While Hollande performed strongly in the quiet suburbs surrounding most major cities, he was not the favourite of urban voters and he lost most or performed comparatively weakly in most of France’s largest cities. Within cities, Hollande’s support was highest in the most affluent (and often most right-wing) neighborhoods. As the Paris inset of the main map shows, Hollande’s strength in Paris was concentrated in the city’s affluent west-end. A similar pattern can be seen in Lyon or Marseille. This is not to say that Hollande was purely the candidate of the affluent, in fact one of Hollande’s main strength here is his proven ability to appeal to a heterogeneous base to build relatively homogeneous levels of support throughout France. Not too surprising, perhaps, given Hollande’s conciliatory and moderate “normal president” image.

In contrast to Hollande’s homogeneous map, one of Aubry’s weaknesses as evidenced by her map is the relative confinement of her support to small bastions. Aubry won only four departments: the Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Seine-Maritime and Paris. In her native Nord, she won 54% and her local favourite daughter base also extends into Pas-de-Calais. In the Seine-Maritime, the support of the historical local left-wing bigwig Laurent Fabius probably played a key role. In Paris, Bertrand Delanoë’s support was probably not without effect. In the Seine-Saint-Denis, which she lost by 1%, Claude Bartolone’s support was also probably not without effect. In general, Aubry convinced a young, urban, generally well-educated and ‘trendy’ electorate. In contrast to François, the candidate of small-towns and the province; Aubry was the candidate of the cities. Though often losing the department in which they are located in, Aubry won most of France’s major cities: Paris, Lyon, Lille, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Grenoble, Rouen or Metz (and came within 2 votes in Rennes). A breakdown of the vote in Paris, Lyon or Marseille shows that Aubry carried the more working-class (and left-wing) neighborhoods but also the more trendy and central bobo areas. In middle-class suburbia or in rural France, Aubry struggled far more. In more urban and in general more politically left-leaning areas (the old left-wing areas in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardie, for example), Aubry did better against Hollande. Her map shows a little Green effect: she performed strongly in regions where Greens do well: Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Atlantique, Savoie, Isère, urban areas and even Alsace (!). This is the only visible effect of non-PS voters on the primary map in a consistent fashion, as the maps show very little perceptible Communist or far-left influence.

Arnaud Montebourg’s map was also relatively evenly balanced, ignoring massive favourite-son voting in his Saône-et-Loire stronghold (56%). Unlike Aubry, his local support spills over into neighboring departments: he performed well above average in next-door Jura (nearly 30%), Ain, Côte-d’Or and Nièvre. In good part, Montebourg’s support was quite rural or small-townish, doing especially well in isolated and ‘forgotten’ departments such as Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (24%), Lot (21%), Lozère (19%), Drôme or Ardèche (22%). These rural departments have been hit hard by a decline in local public services, and there is a lot of anger in these ‘forgotten’ rural confines against Sarkozy and the UMP in general. In other parts, Montebourg’s support was reminiscent of FN support: Montebourg performed above average in traditional frontiste strongholds such as Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var or Alpes-Maritimes. Small town or low-income protectionist voters who may flirt with the FN in other elections, or perhaps – in the Bouches-du-Rhône particularly – a vote against local corruption? In urban or old industrial areas, Montebourg performed about average, and in urban areas his support was usually correlated quite closely to Aubry’s support.

Ségolène Royal did not even save face with her results. She won only 18% in her political base in the Deux-Sèvres, a distant second behind Hollande. Even in her own political stronghold, Melle (in Deux-Sèvres), she was 10% behind Hollande… even Jean-Michel Baylet won his hometown by a big margin. She polled best, with 15-18%, in the region she governs, Poitou-Charentes but did poorly outside there with homogenously low support throughout the rest of France. Royal was popular and had targeted low-income suburban neighborhoods, but even in those top targets for her campaign, she barely polled 10% – at best.

Manuel Valls polled 11% in Essonne and 10% in the Hauts-de-Seine, and won in his hometown of Evry. While some may have thought his political implantation in a commune populaire like Evry and his law-and-order rhetoric might have helped him in other difficult suburbs, he did poorly in those (5% in Seine-Saint-Denis). His support was heavily concentrated in affluent neighborhoods and municipalities. Like Hollande, he did best in posh west-side Paris (over 15% in the 7, 8 and 16th arrondissements) or in the wealthy parts of Lyon or Marseille. He polled 23% in Neuilly-sur-Seine, hometown of a certain Nicolas Sarkozy. Outside Ile-de-France, Valls’ map has a spookily close correlation with that of the FN in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Jean-Michel Baylet managed to win something. Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, with 39% or 106 out of 269 votes. Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon had elected a PRG deputy in 2007, who had backed Baylet in the primaries. In France, he polled best – 15% – in his native Tarn-et-Garonne where he is President of the General Council and Senator. He also won his hometown. But his result in Tarn-et-Garonne represents a full 11% of his national support, and it was one of his only two good showings, the other being the PRG stronghold of Haute-Corse where he won 14% (and more votes than in Paris!). His map, besides that, peaks at 2% support in the traditionally Radical departments of Lot and Hautes-Pyrénées or hardly impressive 1 percents in a lot of old Radical bases.

Predicting the unpredictable

What result for the runoff? The closer-than-expected margin in the first round between Hollande and Aubry will mean a closer-than-expected runoff. While Hollande probably remains the marginal favourite going into the runoff, his slight underperformance on October 9 has broken his momentum somewhat and given Aubry much more momentum then she had on October 8. Both Hollande and Aubry have things going for them, which makes predicting the final result rather perilous and meaning, in effect, that this race is very much open.

François Hollande’s main advantage is that he enters the runoff with a high floor. He can count on the support of at least two-thirds to three-fourths of Valls’ and Baylet’s voters (0.6% and 5.6%), which places his floor at roughly 46%. He has already received the endorsements of both Manuel Valls and Jean-Michel Baylet, both endorsements of low impact but important in that they give him a high floor. More surprisingly, he also received on Wednesday the surprisingly clear endorsement of Ségolène Royal, his ex. It is doubtful whether Royal’s endorsement will have much impact on the final result, given that her reduced electorate is largely composed of her die-hard fans and is rather left-leaning (and thus probably more towards Aubry than Hollande, all things being equal). But the endorsement of his ex is a nice momentum-booster for Hollande, showing him as the candidate most capable of rallying support from both sides of the playing field (Valls and Baylet on the right, Royal on the left).

The PS primary and the primary-related events of this week are all over the news in France, something which should increase turnout even more on October 16 where the motivation to turn out is even higher than last week. There are, in France, a good number of voters who only turn out in the runoff. It is hard to evaluate where these new voters will be coming from and how they will break between Hollande and Aubry. If it is true that some of Hollande’s potential voters abstained on October 9 because his victory was looking very likely, then some of those voters should logically come out to vote on October 16. Higher turnout from centrists or from PS sympathizers should help Hollande, while higher turnout from the radical left or the Greens should help Aubry. Aubry, in general, basically needs any new voters to prefer her over Hollande. Hollande is not as reliant on the support of new voters, and could win the primary while losing these new voters.

Martine Aubry’s main advantage is that her more left-wing positioning in the primary means that she is the most likely benefactor of Arnaud Montebourg’s support. Montebourg, very much a kingmaker, is unlikely to personally endorse any candidate. Though the maverick Montebourg had supported Aubry in Reims in 2008, the two have crossed swords on the issue of the primaries themselves (Montebourg being one of the earliest proponents of open American-like primaries) and most recently on the Guérini affair (Montebourg accusing Aubry of being soft on corruption within the PS). He has repeatedly called Hollande and Aubry two sides of the same coin. While some of his supporters from October 9 will likely not turn out in the runoff, most of his electorate will probably turn out a second time. This is where Aubry’s chances lie: she needs, absolutely needs, strong support from Montebourg’s voters to win the runoff. She appears to be the ‘natural’ choice for his voters. While they have their differences (Europe, corruption etc) she is more left-wing than Hollande and Montebourg’s voters probably harbour lingering doubts about Hollande’s left-wing values. They are more likely to see him as weak-willed, directionless and a flip-flopper. That is exactly why Aubry has been going after Hollande rather violently on these points.

In the final high-stakes TV debate held on Wednesday, Aubry very much targeted Montebourg’s voters by taking a more left-wing tone and attacking Hollande of being soft, weak-willed, a flip-flopper, incoherent or even ‘too rightist’ and ‘too system’. The debate was pretty much a sleep-inducing draw, with Hollande and Aubry both having their weaknesses and strengths and the ‘winner’ largely dependent on one’s perspective on the candidates. It is hard to evaluate what impact the debate will have, but I doubt it will have much impact. Aubry’s increasingly desperate tack to the left is clearly aimed at winning over Montebourg’s voters, and it is really hard to evaluate from my perspective whether or not her debate performance and her tougher and tougher attacks against Hollande will succeed in winning over Montebourg’s voters.

[last minute: Friday Oct. 14 >> Montebourg has announced his personal endorsement of Hollande. A very big blow to Aubry's increasingly chaotic and desperate campaign, and a major boost for Hollande's campaign, perhaps not as much in absolute vote terms but in terms of momentum and last-minute advantage. It remains to be seen whether or not Montebourg's voters will vote like their guy in droves, but even if they don't all vote like him, it remains a pretty crippling blow to Aubry. Her desperate and bizarre attempts to attract him has not work, but it might attract some of his voters. Hollande should be counted as the major favourite in this contest right now.]

Election Preview: France’s left-wing primaries 2011

Left-wing open primary elections (primaires citoyennes) will be held in France on October 9 and 16, 2011. These open primaries will nominate the candidate of the opposition Socialist Party (PS) and its small vassal, the Left Radicals (PRG), for the April 22 and May 6, 2012 presidential elections. These are the first open primaries on such an ambitious scale in France. In the past, in 1995 and 2006, the PS had nominated its candidate through closed primaries where only party members were eligible to vote. In these primaries, anybody can vote provided he/she pays a symbolic fee of €1 and signs a declaration of adherence to left-wing values (and is a registered, eligible voter). These primaries are not organized by the state or any public authorities, rather they are entirely organized by the party which must – especially in municipalities governed by the right – find its own voting locations often separate from traditional voting locations. These first open primaries were seen by the PS as a tool to overcome divisions, motivate voters by enabling them to participate (in the mode of the 2008 Democratic primaries in the US) and giving more legitimacy to the PS candidate in a crucial election for them like 2012.

Candidates needed to receive the endorsement of at least 5% of the PS’ parliamentarians, leadership, regional and general councillors in at least 10 departments and/or 4 regions and PS mayors in large cities in at least four regions. All left-wing parties were theoretically invited to primaries which are officially not PS primaries but rather open left-wing primaries, but only the PS and its tiny perennial ally, the PRG, participated. Candidacies needed to be deposited between June 28 and July 13, 2011. In the end, six candidates received sufficient endorsements to participate.

Up until May 15, the favourite for these primaries and the top-ranking potential candidate, then-IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) was arrested in New York City on counts of sexual aggression in a hotel room. Strauss-Kahn was released on bail on July 1 and criminal charges against him were dropped on August 23 (and allowed to return to France), but in both cases it was either impossible or too late for him to return to France to announce his candidacy. In an interview upon his return to France, Strauss-Kahn more or less openly confirmed that he would have been candidate in these primaries. His de-facto withdrawal on May 15 totally changed the dynamics of the race and threw the field wide open. Up until then, it was widely assumed that DSK would run and that he would rather easily win the primaries. He was the runaway favourite and he was also, at that point, the early favourite in the presidential race against President Nicolas Sarkozy. With their frontrunner out of the race, the left needed to find another candidate. For many voters on the left, their main criteria in choosing a candidate will be his or her ability to defeat Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012.

In terms of policy, the PS itself has already adopted its program of sorts (most of it are general priorities) and candidates in the primaries (besides one) are tied to it. In terms of public rhetoric, all criticize Sarkozy’s economic policies and criticize banks for speculating on debt. All oppose the right’s tough immigration policies and are in favour of case-by-case regularization of illegals.

The Contenders

The top two contenders are François Hollande, president of the general council of Corrèze, deputy (MP) and former secretary-general of the PS; and Martine Aubry, Mayor of Lille and secretary-general of the PS since 2008. The other candidates are Ségolène Royal, 2007 candidate and the president of the regional council of Poitou-Charentes; Arnaud Montebourg, president of the general council of Saône-et-Loire and deputy; Manuel Valls, deputy and mayor of Evry; and Jean-Michel Baylet, senator, president of the general council of Tarn-et-Garonne and leader of the PRG.

François Hollande is the frontrunner and the favourite of the primaries. Hollande, who is 57, served as the party’s secretary-general between 1997 and 2008. He has been the deputy (MP) for Corrèze’s 1st constituency since 1997 (and before that between 1988 and 1993) and has been president of the general council of his department since 2008. He was mayor of Tulle between 2001 and 2008. A rarity among presidential candidates, he has never been a cabinet minister and, if elected, would be the first President of the Fifth Republic to never have served in any cabinet. Hollande’s tenure at the helm of the party between 1997 and 2008 has been criticized by some of his opponents, but in general it was rather successful: he won the 1999 and 2004 European elections, won a landslide in the 2004 regional and cantonal elections and saved face in the 2002 and 2007 legislative election. He was weakened by the defeat of the EU Constitution in the 2005 referendum, when his leadership backed a ‘yes’ vote against the will of part of the PS leaders and voters. In his leadership, he was perceived as generally weak-willed and with little drive, ambition or deep political talent.

Hollande announced his candidacy following his reelection as president of the general council in his department in March 2011, and overcame weak polling numbers to become DSK’s main rival in the primary field. Polls right before the DSK affair exploded on May 15 showed that Hollande had managed to significantly narrow the gap with DSK. Following his withdrawal, he surged to become the frontrunner in the field and has held the advantage in the field since then with the exception of late June and early July. He has a lead of at least ten points and oftentimes over 15 over his closest opponent, Martine Aubry.

Hollande’s success, which might surprise given his past image as a cute but ineffective gadfly, stems from his ability to incarnate himself as the “normal president” – first in contrast to the media-savvy world-traveling DSK and now in contrast to the bling-bling elitist Sarkozy. Shedding some weight, he is seen as a sincere, competent and ‘normal’ by voters. Even his lack of ministerial experience is now an asset when presenting himself to voters, as he is not as associated to “those corrupt career politicians” and those perennial cabinet ministers. Perhaps slightly amusing given his past at the helm of the PS for eleven years, he is also more or less the ‘grassroots’ candidate opposed to the candidate of the party hierarchy and leadership. He is popular with PS voters at the grassroots level, and his popularity is wider with those more likely to vote in the primaries: the older voters and the PS members (rather than all self-IDed left-wingers).

When Hollande was secretary-general, he was generally opposed from his left (Laurent Fabius, Henri Emmanuelli, Arnaud Montebourg) and generally aligned with the centrist/moderate ‘barons’. He can be seen as a reformist social democrat, not exactly on the party’s right-wing but certainly not on the party’s left. His main priorities in this campaign, policy-wise, are fiscal reform and his ‘contracts of generation’. His top fiscal measure is to merge the income tax with a social tax (CSG) to create a universal, progressive income tax paid by everybody in full equality. He is tougher than Aubry on debt reduction, and while he opposes the government’s proposed golden rule amendment, he proposes some tougher measures to reduce France’s public debt and promises to balance the books by a set date (2017). He has shown himself favourable to a regulated bank bailout if needed, on condition that the state enters the bank’s board of directors. His other main proposal is the controversial contrats de génération (contracts of generation) which is a plan to create 200,000 jobs for youths (and maintain them for seniors) through fiscal incentives for businesses. He has also proposed to re-hire over five years the 60-70k education positions abolished since 2007. He opposes the government’s policy of not replacing half of retiring public employees in education.

Polling shows that Hollande is the strongest PS candidate against Sarkozy, with 28-30% in the first round and a breezy victory in the runoff over Sarkozy with about 55% support. Of the primary candidates, Hollande is the candidate with the strongest ability to gather centrist, moderate and even centre-right voters in the first or second rounds. This might become even more important as the centre-right finds itself devoid of a candidate after Jean-Louis Borloo’s surprise withdrawal.

Hollande is backed by most of the ‘moderates’ within the party including Pierre Moscovici (a former strauss-kahnian) and a lot of equally moderate provincial or local barons such as Jean-Yves Le Drian, Alain Rousset,  François Patriat, Michel Sapin, André Vallini, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Gérard Collomb, François Rebsamen or Roland Ries. Some of them such as Collomb and Rebsamen had supported Royal in 2008 when she was more moderate, others had supported the flopped Delanoë motion then. His support, in general, both by the sections of the party elites and the left-wing base of voters, seems more provincial than Aubry’s support and also more populaire, that is, more popular with the unemployed  and employees, but also retirees (who are good voters in terms of turnout).

Martine Aubry is Hollande’s longshot rival and the First-Secretary of the PS since 2008 (temporarily replaced during the campaign by Harlem Désir). Aubry is the daughter of Jacques Delors, the former European commissioner and finance minister between 1981 and 1985. Delors, a moderate pro-European social democrat, had been the party’s favourite in the 1995 presidential election but he ended up not running. Aubry is, like Hollande and Royal, an énarque and a former public administrator. Her political career began when she became Minister of Labour, Employment and Professional Formation in the Cresson government in 1991. As the left won power in 1997, Aubry completed her political implantation in Lille (Nord) with her victory in a suburban constituency. In the Jospin government, she served as Minister of Labour and Solidarity until 2000. Her tenure in office is most famous for the 35-hour workweek, a controversial measure which has since associated Aubry with the party’s left though she is not a natural or traditional member of the party’s traditional left-wing. She was elected mayor of Lille in 2001, an office she has held since. However, she was defeated for reelection in her constituency in 2002 by a young right-winger. Her 2002 defeat made headlines when Aubry cried upon hearing the results.

Fresh from a landslide reelection in 2008, Aubry ran for the party’s leadership at the tumultuous Reims Congress. Though her motion finished third in the motions vote, narrowly behind Delanoë’s motion, she received support from most of Delanoë’s old guard base to run for the elected position of first-secretary. She defeated Royal by 102 votes in the runoff ballot, in an election marred by potential irregularities on both sides. Her leadership was feeble in 2009, especially after the disastrous European elections, but the PS victory in the 2010 and 2011 mid-term elections cemented her leadership and boosted her potential presidential candidacy.

Aubry announced her candidacy on June 28. She enjoyed a short-lived surge in support after her announcement, but this edge over Hollande soon dissipated and turned into a large deficit by the end of the summer. Aubry could have seized the advantage presented to her by her enviable position at the heart of the party, and, while holding the support of the party’s left and non-PS (PCF, Green and so forth) voters slowly moving to the centre. But Aubry is far more of a technocrat than a charismatic politician, and she is unable to convey warmth or energy. Thus her campaign has been poorly managed and overall has been boring and stale. Unlike Hollande, who can cultivate warmth with voters on the ground with talk of a “normal President”, Aubry cannot as she appears distant, cold and somewhat elitist. She is also seen much more as a “candidate by default” than as a candidate by conviction. She ran because she needed to do so after DSK’s arrest on May 15. DSK, in his record-breaking interview upon his return from the US declared that Aubry and him had indeed been party to a ‘pact’ in which Aubry had pledged not to run if DSK ran.

Aubry has usually been seen as more to the left of the party, and she is undoubtedly to Hollande’s left. The ideological differences between Hollande and Aubry are not wide, as in most PS infightings, the feud between Hollande and Aubry is personal rather than deeply ideological though the feud has pushed her to the left. Aubry also pledges to reduce France’s deficit to under 3% of the GDP by 2013 but unlike Hollande refuses to set a date for a balanced budget (Hollande has said 2017). Aubry wishes to drastically cut France’s many niches fiscales (tax loopholes or tax exemptions) which she estimates costs the state 50 billion euros. Opposed to Hollande’s contrats de génération she promises 300,000 new ‘future jobs’ over the course of the five-year term. On environmental issues, she is ‘greener’ than Hollande. While Hollande only wants to cut France’s dependence on nuclear energy from 75% to 50%, Aubry supports an eventual withdrawal from nuclear energy.

Aubry performs only a few points less than Hollande in polls and she would still defeat Sarkozy by a somewhat closer margin in a runoff today. She does not really have Hollande’s ability to win over centrist voters. In contrast, she is probably more popular than Hollande is with the wider left-wing

As party leader, Aubry is very much the establishment candidate, supported by those closest to the party’s incumbent leadership. Aubry has a very weak political base within the party, and in her 2008 election she depended very much on the support of Laurent Fabius’ far more influential faction (20% of the PS or so). Since then, she has also allied closely with the party’s left (most notably Benoît Hamon, the spokesperson of the PS who in Reims led the party’s left), the more left-leaning of the strauss-kahnians, a few moderates and some close allies of Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë. Her supporters include Fabius, Delanoë, Claude Bartolone (Fabius’ lieutenant),  Jean-Christophe Cambadélis (a close ally of DSK), Jack Lang, Henri Emmanuelli, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann and Jean-Paul Huchon.

Ségolène Royal was the PS’ 2007 standard bearer and fell 102 votes short of becoming first-secretary in 2008, but since then her fall from the top echelons of politics has been painful. She is at best a distant third now, and perhaps even fourth. Royal was Hollande’s life partner between the late 1970s and 2007, but since then relations between the two have been apparently very poor. Royal, always something of an oddball or maverick in terms of background and policies within the PS, was a young cabinet minister Bérégovoy and Jospin before being elected to the regional presidency in the Poitou-Charentes in 2004. Her victory in then-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s native region was significant and boosted her political profile significantly in the run-up to the 2007 presidential election. Royal has no long-standing affiliation with any of the PS’s “historic” factions and her supporters within the party have been all over the place, from ‘moderates’ to left-wingers. Her 2006 primary victory (closed primary, which she won with over 60%) was caused not by her platform’s depth but rather by her standing as a refreshing, charismatic and populist outsider in a contest which pitted her against the old guardsmen Fabius and DSK. The fact that polls showed that she was the most likely to defeat Sarkozy in 2007 didn’t hurt, to say the least.

During her 2007 campaign and since then, Royal has been criticized for her utter lack of coherent political ideas and her half-bizarre/half-crazy attitude in general. In 2007, she made various gaffes on foreign policy and beyond that crafted a program which flirted with the traditionalist right on issues such as security or the family while her idea of “participatory democracy” contrasted in practice with her authoritarian style of governance in Poitou. In the runoff debate, her (pathetic) outburst of staged anger was the first sign of a bizarre erratic character which would become commonplace for her in 2008 and 2009. At times, it appeared as if she was more some sort of religious sect leader rather than a politician. Because of her populist posturing as a maverick outsider and because of her erratic populist behaviour in general, she is the enemy of most of the party’s old guard and hierarchy since at least 2007. She entertains horrible relations with Aubry, Delanoë, Fabius, Jospin and probably Hollande and DSK. To call her ‘anti-establishment’ is only half correct, however, as until 2008 she still enjoyed significant support from members of the PS’ regional establishment: Collomb, Bianco, Guérini or Queyranne.

Royal announced her candidacy in November 2010, nearly a year before the primaries. Throughout the campaign she has never been in a position where she could stand a realistic chance of winning or qualify for a potential runoff. Of the three major candidates in the primaries, she is the one who would perform the worst against Sarkozy – so badly in fact that, if she was to be the candidate, a second April 21, 2002 scenario would be a real possibility. Her erratic, opportunistic and populist half-crazy behaviour in recent years has alienated a large part of her original supporters, who no longer she in her the charismatic refreshing outsider they saw in her in 2006 but rather a crazy old politician who has no coherent ideas of her own.

To think that Royal ever had coherent political ideas is being crazy. She, as a pure opportunist, has shifted her rhetoric to adapt to the crowd and the times. In 2008, when she almost became party leader, she was rather centrist and moderate in her rhetoric with ideas such as an alliance with the centre. This year, however, she has clearly positioned herself on the leaderless left of the party as a sort of left-populist candidate with a syncretic mix of outdated socialism and weird old right traditionalism. Her economic policies include price freezes, guaranteeing lifelong minimal pay raise for workers, nationalizations in all but name for some companies and a constitutional ban mass layoffs. As in 2007, she cultivates a more law-and-order image on security and families. In 2007, she favoured military training for young offenders and talked of the family in rather traditionalist terms.

Since 2008, Royal has been crippled by the departure of most of her bigwig allies. Collomb, her close ally in Reims in 2008, supports Hollande. Guérini the crooked party boss supports Aubry. Valls is running himself. She is left with a base of unconditional ‘royalists’ including Jean-Louis Bianco, Edith Cresson, Jean-Jack Queyranne, Maxime Bono, Guillaume Garot and Delphine Batho.

Arnaud Montebourg is something of the PS’ young maverick and could be the surprise of the primaries if he outpolls Royal for third. Montebourg, who is 48, is a former lawyer who has been deputy for the Saône-et-Loire since 1997 and president of the general council of Saône-et-Loire since 2008. Montebourg, who is starkly on the party’s left, is a charismatic outsider known for his support of a Sixth Republic and his anti-corruption battle notably against then-President Jacques Chirac in 2001. Montebourg supported the NPS faction in the 2005 Le Mans Congress, but then contributed to the NPS’ slow collapse after he rallied Royal in 2006 before backing Aubry in 2008. Montebourg, an extremely media savvy and camera-craving politician, is deeply ambitious and hopes to become a leading figure in the party in coming years. His candidacy is a way of increasing his profile in national politics.

Like Royal, Montebourg announced his candidacy back in November 2010. Montebourg, a longtime standard bearer for the party’s left, is the most left-wing of the 6 candidates. He is supporter of what he calls démondialisation (deglobalization) and some sort of ‘European protectionism’. His economic policies include this aforementioned ‘European protectionism’ consisting of erecting trade barriers to protect Europe from worldwide market competition, notably from China. Domestically, he supports a ‘green reindustrialization’ of France’s economy through a ‘green industrial revolution’, wants to put banks under supervision and also talks of nationalization in all but name. Besides those policies, he supports the creation of a parliamentary Sixth Republic (an old project of his) and is the top anti-corruption candidate. Montebourg has long been popular for his positions against corrupt politicians and gained points in the second debate with his virulent attacks on Jean-Noël Guérini, the embattled corrupt president of the general council of the Bouches-du-Rhône and a thorn in Aubry’s side (he backs Aubry).

Montebourg has little high-profile supporters beside from a few deputies and senators on the party’s left. His top-ranking supporter is 2002 PRG presidential candidate and Guyanese deputy Christiane Taubira.

Manuel Valls is the party’s other “young lion” in this election and hopes to raise his political profile ahead of the next presidential elections in this primary. Valls is deputy and mayor of Evry, a rather low-income planned suburb of Paris in the Essonne department. Manuel Valls, who strongly supported Royal in 2008, gives the image of a young reformist outsider, shunned by his party’s top brass. With reason too: Valls is a critical voice within the party, questioning the party’s dogma on sacrosanct things such as the 35-hour workweek. His political future as a potential ‘rising star’ within the party is constantly checked by his controversial reformist positions on party dogma.

Valls announced his candidacy following DSK’s ‘withdrawal’ of sorts in May. His candidacy never hoped to take DSK’s place on the centre and right of the party, but rather hoped to raise the name recognition and media image of the young mayor of Evry who will certainly try another run at the top executive post. In a campaign which he says aims to “talk truth to voters”, Valls is the most right-wing of all the candidates. He is quite critical the old-style statism of Montebourg and Royal as irresponsible populism. In the past, he has called for a liberalization of the 35-hour workweek, which is very much a holy grail which cannot be touched within the party. He says his main priority would be to combat the debt and public deficit, and pledges to not undertake any new spending without first compensating for new spending by similar cuts elsewhere. He opposes overtaxation of businesses but has made clear that he sees ‘responsible’ tax increases as a necessity to lower the deficit. His economic policies were good enough for The Economist, which praised him as the most responsible of the candidates on economic and fiscal policy – while scolding the others for their overblown left-wing rhetoric. Valls has historically been an advocate of majorly reforming the PS, including changing the party’s name.

Valls’ right-wing positions by party standards might make him popular with right-wing voters, but within the party he aims for a small base which has never gathered more than 10% support in internal contests. Some observers have compared him to Michel Rocard, a moderate pragmatic centrist leader within the PS, but Valls is closer ideologically to Jean-Marie Bockel, the former standard bearer of the ‘social-liberal’ minority within the PS before joining the presidential majority in 2007.

Valls has very little grassroots support, an effect both of his position on the party’s small right-wing and his low name recognition; and low establishment support. Only a handful of parliamentarians back him.

Jean-Michel Baylet is the “nobody” candidate whom nobody knows why he’s actually running. Baylet is not a member of the PS: he is the leader of the Left Radicals (PRG), a small social-liberal party which is little more than a vassal of the PS in actual terms. Baylet is also a PRG Senator, president of the general council of the Tarn-et-Garonne and a businessman/newspaper baron. Nobody really knows who he is outside of his zone of influence in the southwest through his newspaper, the Dépêche du Midi. Baylet has little charisma and is the dictionary definition of an old Radical notable with a local business and political network but lacking the skills which make a national politician.

Baylet is running because it is the best way for his little party, the PRG, to gain a little media coverage and, in the eyes of the PS, still appear relevant and as an ally to be respected when the PS is increasingly being pulled by the Greens to give the far more electorally important Greens a larger role in internal dealings, ahead of the 2012 legislative election. Baylet’s goal seems to be to make sure that the PS still treats him as a loyal ally and gives the PRG a good number of constituencies in 2012 and not give in entirely to the Greens’ and the Left Front’s demands. Policy wise, the only thing which people know about his policy is that he supports legalizing cannabis. Besides that, he is rather moderate and overall to the right of the field. He is concerned, like Valls, about spending levels in relation to France’s deficit and he wants a federal Europe to spearhead economic reform.

He is supported by the PRG’s caucus and a few overseas deputies. He is also backed by Génération écologie (GE), an old but very small centre-right green party. Nobody knows Baylet and he has absolutely no base with those who will vote in bigger numbers (PS members), therefore he will perform very poorly.

Polling

It is hard to poll primaries in Europe, France included, because there is no widespread party registration like in the United States where it easier to identify registered partisans and independents. Polling an open primary with a wider electorate which is not limited only to party members is, however, easier and more accurate. Pollsters nowadays include two samples in their polls: leftists and socialists, sometimes expanding it to include smaller (and thus more shaky) subsamples of leftists and socialists ‘likely to vote’.  The most recent poll is from Ifop, which polled on different days between September 15 and 30 and identified 1434 leftists including 782 socialists. The breakdown I give is as follows: % among leftists/% among leftists likely to vote/% among socialists. Beware of small samples.

François Hollande 42% / 46% / 51%
Martine Aubry 27% / 26% / 26%
Ségolène Royal 11% / 11% / 9%
Arnaud Montebourg 8% / 7% / 5%
Manuel Valls 5% / 5% / 5%
Jean-Michel Baylet 1% / 1% / 1%
NOTA 5% / 2% / 2%
Undecided 1% / 2% / 1%

Ipsos between September 21 and 26 polled those likely to vote in the primary:

François Hollande 44%
Martine Aubry 27%
Ségolène Royal 13%
Arnaud Montebourg 10%
Manuel Valls 5%
Jean-Michel Baylet 1%

A Harris poll between September 28 and 29, so entirely after the second debate, said (% among leftists/% among socialists)

François Hollande 40% / 49%
Martine Aubry 28% / 26%
Arnaud Montebourg 12% / 9%
Ségolène Royal 6% / 6%
Manuel Valls 4% / 5%
Jean-Michel Baylet 1% / 0%
NOTA 9% / 5%

The guiding principle when looking at these polls should be caution and more caution. Primaries like these are new in France to hard and treacherous to poll. While Hollande is undoubtedly the favourite and will come out on top – all pollsters agree at least on this point – his performance on October 9 will affect how the runoff is played off on October 16. If he ends up polling as strongly as he polls with only PS primary voters, then he will either win outright by October 9 or he will head into October 16 as the pretty much unbeatable candidate. If, however, he polls only 40% or even, less likely, falls below 40% while Aubry manages to break 30%, the whole game could be altered pretty significantly. While recent polls on a Hollande/Aubry runoff give Hollande a big edge there too, if he enters this runoff with a weak October 9 performance he could be vulnerable to attacks from Aubry and a change in voter mobilization. Furthermore, Aubry can count on a slightly larger of potential runoff voters from first-round Royal and Montebourg voters while Hollande’s most likely sources of runoff transfers are pretty weak (Valls and Baylet). Hollande is the favourite, but given the unpredictable nature of such affairs, don’t be shocked if the polls blow this pretty badly.

Open primaries will be much less open to vote manipulation, backroom deals and unorthodox tactics on the ground than closed primaries or internal PS party business is. Party machines and the ‘big federations’ will not have as much sway over the results in an open primary, where the electorate is much wider and, for a lot probably, not tied to the power of the bosses of the big federations. While I expect the patterns to be similar to internal PS party business, with Aubry polling strongly in the Nord and in Fabiusian fiefs such as his native Seine-Maritime, it is unlikely that, like in the 2008 first-secretary runoff, the shady and unorthodox party bosses in their federations will be able to control the results. Royal has expressed concern about the power of the unorthodox party bosses, but that’s mostly because she has lost all of their support, because in 2008 she didn’t raise much concerns about the heavy-handed and behind-the-scenes manipulations of one Jean-Noël Guérini who had delivered his big federation to her with a huge (77%) majority… Beyond manipulations and unsavoury voting shenanigans, Aubry’s campaign is pretty terrible but her campaign team includes old weathered apparatchiks who could be an asset in a closely fought runoff battle: people like Claude Bartolone, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, David Assouline or Laurent Fabius.

For those who read French, I strongly recommend you to read the new Sondages 2012 blog, written by a good friend of mine who has some much more interesting analysis on all things 2012.

French Senate 2011

Indirect senatorial elections were held in France on September 25, 2011. 170 Senators of Series I were up for reelection for a six-year term. After this election, the French Senate will have 348 members, of which 326 represent metropolitan France and the DOM-TOMs. The Senate currently has 343 members: Isère, Maine-et-Loire, Oise, Réunion and New Caledonia all gained one seat. Though not directly elected, the Senate has similar powers to the National Assembly in terms of proposing, voting and ratifying laws although in cases where there is utter deadlock, the government can ultimately bypass the Senate and give the National Assembly the final word. The government is not responsible to the Senate.

Each department or collectivité territoriale elects between one and 12 (Paris) Senators. This election concerns all departments numbered 37 to 66, all departments in the Ile-de-France region, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and 6 of 12 Senators representing French citizens living outside of France. Those Senators in the departments 37-66 were elected in 2001, the rest were elected in 2004. Departments with 4 or more seats elect their Senators using party-list proportional representation. Departments with 3 or fewer seats elect theirs using the two-round system. The Senate is elected by an electoral college of roughly 150,000 grand electors. This electoral college is composed of all 577 deputies, regional councillors, general councillors and most importantly delegates from each municipal council (from France’s 36,000+ municipalities). The number of delegates each municipality sends to the electoral college depends on the municipality’s population. For example, those with 500 or less send only one. Those with 3,500 to 8,999 inhabitants send 15. Municipal councillors in cities with over 9,000 inhabitants are all delegates, and those cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants also send an extra delegate for each additional 1,000 people. This system over-represents the smallest municipalities because of the sheer number of tiny municipalities in France. Thus, even if municipalities with less than 3,500 people make up 34% or so of the population, they represent nearly half of the delegates!

Because of the Senate’s rural bias, the Senate has always been a “chamber of sober second thought”, and, by consequence, quite conservative. The Socialist left has never won a majority in the Senate. Rural municipalities in France, so important in the Senate, have traditionally been rather right-leaning but most of their elected officials are non-partisan with ambiguous ties to the large parties. The Senate’s electoral system has favoured those parties with strong grassroots bases in small-town France or alternatively parties with powerful local government machines (the former being more important). This favouritism for small-town grassroots parties or groupings of politicians has benefited the so-called ‘moderate’ parties of the centre (which were quite small-c conservative overall): the Christian democrats, the old Fourth Republic ‘moderates’ (right-wingers) and of course the Radicals. Those political forces are not major ideological “mass parties” like the Gaullists, socialists or communists, but they are rather partis de notables with large cohorts of small-town elected officials and the sort. During the Third Republic, the Senate was a Radical preserve. During the Fourth Republic and in fact a good part of the Fifth Republic, the Senate maintained large Radical and centrist caucuses – far larger than similar groups in the National Assembly. Even in 2001, the Radicals and centrist-liberal groups together held 35% of seats.

The brain-dead media usually says that “the Senate is right-wing since 1958″, assuming they don’t go sensational on us and say that it’s been right-wing since 1876. While a case could be made that, by modern definitions of left and right, the Senate has been more ‘right-wing’ for its history, it is not quite correct to say that the right has held the Senate. The Radicals were, in their senatorial heydays, not “right-wing” in that they allied themselves with the left rather than right. The Gaullist presidential majority never controlled the Senate under de Gaulle and Pompidou, and it was only in 1974 with the disappearance of the centrist opposition that the presidential majority gained a senatorial majority. The first President of the Senate under the Fifth Republic, the Radical Gaston Monnerville (1959-1968) was very much anti-Gaullist. Alain Poher, elected in 1968, was a centrist opponent of the Gaullist majority. The Gaullist right would need to wait until Christian Poncelet’s election to the presidency of the Senate in 1998 to really “control” the Senate. It is, however, correct to say that the socialists have never controlled the Senate. Whether or not the left has controlled it depends on your definition of such terms.

French politics are increasingly bipolarized, but Senate political groups (15 members required to form such groups) are remarkably cross-ideological to this day. There are two main so-called groupes charnières which lay in the middle of the upper house. The Centrist Union (UC), the remnants of the old Christian democratic groups, is a broad centrist group composed of centre-right/centrist senators from the New Centre (NC), Centrist Alliance (AC), MoDem and independent centrists. The NC and AC generally align with the presidential majority, but the MoDem can show its independence at times though in practice and despite François Bayrou’s posturing, it more often aligns with the right than with the left. Since the UMP lost its overall majority in the Senate in 2008, the UC has provided the right with an absolute majority. The second main centrist group is the European Democratic and Social Rally (RDSE), the modern incarnation of the time immemorial Radical (Democratic Left) parliamentary groups, once so powerful. The RDSE, in theory, includes members of the right-wing Radical Party (PR, led by Jean-Louis Borloo) and the left-wing Left Radicals (PRG, led by Jean-Michel Baylet), which makes it quite unique given that in the National Assembly, the Radicals and PRG have sat in separate groups since the 1970s. While until 2008 the RDSE was pretty evenly balanced between left and right, in recent years it has become quite heavily slanted towards the left. Only one right-wing Radical sits in the RDSE group (Aymeri de Montesquiou) and of the 18 RDSE members, only five are right-wing today. The Radical past of the RDSE is decaying slowly as the RDSE tries to save itself by becoming more and more a group for non-socialist left-wingers, most notably Jean-Pierre Chevènement of the MRC, whose party has little in common with the pro-European tradition of the Radicals.

These elections were important in that, seven months out from the “big election” (presidential elections), the PS was hoping to stage a symbolic coup by toppling decades of right-wing control of the Senate. Symbolic because it is unlikely to massively impede the right’s ability to pass legislation until the spring of 2012 (and after if it is reelected then). Given that half of seats were up for reelection rather than only a third like in previous years also increased the chances of alternance in the upper house. If the Senate was directly elected by voters, the Senate would already be controlled by the left, but given that the Senate’s composition is in the hands of local councillors, a lot of whom have no partisan ties (with either PS or UMP), there was uncertainty over the outcome. Another boost to the left’s chances came with the utter division of the right, which descended more than ever into personal squabbles and petty fights. In most elections with proportional elections, the right was divided between two or more lists. In Paris, the UMP split into an official list led by Chantal Jouanno, Sports Minister and a dissident list led by local councillor Pierre Charon. Add to that a centrist list led by sitting Senator Yves Pozzo di Borgo (NC), and the ground was rough for the right. In Nicolas Sarkozy’s native Hauts-de-Seine, the local UMP was divided between an official list led by Roger Karoutchi and a dissident list led by incumbent Senator Jacques Gautier. The centre was also divided, with Senator Denis Badré’s MoDem list and Meudon mayor Hervé Marseille’s NC list. In Seine-et-Marne, former cabinet minister Yves Jégo, now aligned with Borloo, ran his own list. In the Nord, the right had three major lists. The list of right-wing divisions is long: Isère, Essonne, Yvelines, Val-de-Marne, Val-d’Oise and so forth.

Here are the results, as I have calculated them. Other counts differ slightly from mine, but all is a question of how some senators are classified.

Left 177 seats (+25)
Right 171 seats (-18)

In terms of groups, my estimate is as follows – it will be incorrect as certain independents side with another group over the ones I’ve guessed for them:

Socialist and allies group 143 seats (+28)
UMP and allies group 136 seats (-11)
Centrist Union (UC) 25 seats (-4)
Communist and allies (CRC) group 21 seats (-3)
European Democratic and Social Rally (RDSE) 16 seats (-2)
Non-inscrits (RASNAG) group 7 seats (-1) [nb: all are right-wingers]

Overall numbers correct or not, the left has narrowly claimed control of the Senate and broken decades of right-wing dominance of the upper house in a symbolic blow to President Sarkozy seven months out from the big election. For the first time, the Socialists will control the Senate. That’s quite something.

It was theorized that if the elections ended in deadlock, with the left gaining but falling short of a 175-seat majority, that the centrist group, UC specifically, could hope to gain the Senate’s presidency as a compromise choice through backroom deals. Jean Arthuis (AC, Mayenne) had been cited as one of those potential moderate compromise choices between left and right. That amounts to naught basically, as the left can elect one of its own to the presidency now. The most logical choice to replace the incumbent Gérard Larcher (UMP, Yvelines) is the leader of the PS group since 2004, Jean-Pierre Bel (PS, Ariège). He is not too well known and is not an heavy-weight political, so pundits think that he might face some internal competition – the biggest name to emerge so far is that of former cabinet minister Catherine Tasca (PS, Yvelines). In terms of the PS primary on October 9 (more on that soon), Bel and the bulk of PS Senators back frontrunner François Hollande. Tasca backs Martine Aubry. The bigwig hollandistes in the Senate (Dijon mayor François Rebsamen, Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb) seem loyal to Bel.

You can view results on the Senate’s official website here or through the Interior Ministry. The left picked up seats almost across the board: they only lost seats in Moselle. The left also gained four of the five new seats created (all but New Caledonia’s new second seat). Some of the most shocking gains for the left came in the Morbihan, Lozère and Loir-et-Cher. Morbihan is, I think, the most shocking of all results – all other gains could have been seen beforehand, but not the game-changer in Morbihan. Morbihan had elected three senators through proportional representation in 2001, one of them was a Socialist (Odette Herviaux) and the other two were right-wingers. The right had hoped and many had thought that the Morbihan would be a good target for a grand-slam for the right, benefiting from the use of two-round voting rather than PR and the notoriety of its three main candidates: incumbent Senator Joseph Kerguéris (AC), deputy for the 6th constituency and Plouay mayor Jacques Le Nay (UMP) and the new president of the general council, deputy for the 1st constituency and former Vannes mayor François Goulard (RS, Villepin’s party). Not much ink was spilled about the left’s other two candidates: the PCF mayor of Auray Michel Le Scouarnec and the EELV general councillor Joël Labbé. The first shockwave was Herviaux’s reelection by the first round with 54.7%. The second was the fact that Le Scouarnec and Labbé placed second and third (47.5% and 47.9% respectively) – ahead of the right-wingers (Le Nay with 47.1%, Goulard and Kerguéris with 45.8%). Kerguéris’ withdrawal before the runoff didn’t help matters: the communist and the green won with 51.7% and 51% respectively. Le Nay and Goulard took 46% each. The left’s gain of two seats in the Morbihan, totally unexpected, was a big result.

In historically right-wing Lozère, UMP incumbent Jacques Blanc (a former regional president) was defeated in the second round by Alain Bertrand, the PS mayor of Mende. This is the first socialist to represent Lozère. In the first round, Blanc had 169 votes to Bertrand’s 168 (the FN won 1 vote). In the runoff, Bertrand won 173-169 against the longtime local strongman with no FN votes recorded. In the Loir-et-Cher, after MoDem incumbent Jacqueline Gourault’s easy reelection in the first round, the second round saw the defeat of sitting cabinet minister Maurice Leroy (NC) by Jeanny Lorgeoux (PS), the mayor of Romorantin-Lanthenay. In the Loiret, incumbent PS Senator Jean-Pierre Sueur had been thought to be vulnerable, but he was easily reelected as early as the first round. In the Manche, the very vulnerable PS incumbent Jean-Pierre Godefroy (elected through PR in 2001) was saved by the UMP’s division in the runoff. In the Pyrénées-Orientales, the surprise wasn’t as much the easy election of the regional president Christian Bourquin (DVG), bur rather the defeat of incumbent UMP Senator and Perpignan mayor Jean-Paul Alduy by the other UMP candidate, deputy François Calvet. In the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, former departmental president Jean-Jacques Lasserre (MoDem) was rather easily elected. The biggest (but not altogether surprising) defeat was that of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon senator Denis Detcheverry (DVD-RDSE) who won a grand total of zero votes in his reelection bid. In the tiny archipelago, the PS mayor of Saint-Pierre Karine Claireaux defeated former UMP deputy Gérard Grignon 20 votes to 17.

In most departments using list PR to elect their members, many grand electors shunned the official UMP list and generously gave their votes to the dissident lists. In Paris, Jouanno’s UMP list received only two seats and 22.9% while Charon’s dissident UMP list took 7.98% and the centrist list took 7.65%. In the Hauts-de-Seine, Roger Karoutchi’s official list took only 23.2% and two seats while Gautier’s dissident list won 19.4% and Marseille’s NC list won 13.8%. In Isère, Michel Savin’s dissident list took 16.7% – only a handful of votes behind Bernard Saugey’s official list which won 17.5%. In the Nord, the Lecerf-Létard duo won 18.3% and two seats against Jacques Legendre’s UMP list, which won 9.7%. In departments which pitted centrist lists against official UMP lists (Loire-Atlantique, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis and so on), the results obtained by the centrist lists were strong in contrast to the UMP’s weak showings. In Loire-Atlantique, the NC list managed 18% against 25.5% for the UMP list. The divisions of the right did not cripple the senatorial majority, as the UMP would like to make us think, but it did hurt it more than just a bit. The poor showings of the official UMP lists imposed on the voters by the presidential party’s high command and, in contrast, the strong showings of both dissident UMP lists and of rival centrist (often NC-led) lists shows how the whole configuration of the UMP as the big tent ­”parti unique” of the right is showing its strains. The centralization of the UMP appartus, painfully evident in this election, has crippled the party on the ground. It seems as if, in the UMP and in the high echelons of power, there’s only one way or the highway. Those unhappy with this route are left out on their own. In the days of the dualistic RPR-UDF configuration of the right, there could be some sort of alternative for right-wingers who fell out with one of those parties. These days, there is no such strong alternative for right-wingers who, more often than not, turn to the FN or the left. The UMP’s days as the hegemonic party of the French right may be numbered. Nicolas Sarkozy’s insistence on there being only one right-wing candidate in 2012 is also practically dead as the presidential candidacy of Jean-Louis Borloo, who could potentially incarnate the centre-right alternative (a la UDF), is looking increasingly likely.

In detail by parties, my calculations still have the UMP as the largest single party with 125 seats against 121 for the PS. The Greens (EELV) emerged as the big winners of the senatorial elections, not through their own strong showings but rather through the PS’s generosity in their favour. The Greens, having a tiny base in local government, has usually been very weak in senate elections: they held only four seats before the election. The increasingly influential EELV apparatus demanded from the PS the concession of many seats, which the PS generally acquiesced to generously. The Greens now have 10 senators, up 6 from the last senate. This is not enough for them to create their own group as they demand, but if they can convince a few left-wing indies (DVG) to join up, they might have a team of their own. Or, alternatively, they could, with the PRG, turn the RDSE into something more akin to the diverse Radical-Citizen-Green (RCV) group of the 1997-2002 National Assembly. The RDSE, with 16 seats – a loss of two senators (Daniel Marsin in Guadeloupe and Denis Detcheverry in SPM), both of them right-wingers, is now more than ever a quasi-homogeneous left-wing caucus. Only three of the 16 Senators in the old RDSE group are now right-leaning. In the centre, the UC overall lost four seats. It could increase its ranks a bit if a few UMP dissidents join it. Within the diverse UC, the cards have been changed quite a bit. Jean Arthuis’ AC was the biggest party prior to the vote, now the NC is the biggest party with 12 (or 11, according to sources) members while the AC now has seven. The MoDem took a significant hit, losing all three of its seats in Ile-de-France and being left with a much reduced caucus of four senators. The Communist group is left with 21 members, down three. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s PG lost both its senators (both retired), while the PCF lost a seat in Seine-Saint-Denis and Essonne. The PCF scored a gain, as aforementioned, in Morbihan with the surprise election of Auray mayor Michel Le Scouarnec. One of the Communist seats is held by the Reunionese Communists (PCR), which won one member – Paul Vergès – who resigned his seat immediately after winning it (he is replaced by incumbent PCR senator Gélita Hoarau, who was second on his list).

In these elections, rural local councillors are the determinants (outside the urban departments which use PR) and they make or break majorities. They have no partisan ties, but traditionally they have been naturally conservative and right-leaning. However, in 2011 especially and in the last elections (2008) to a lesser extent, rural France’s local councillors showed their anger with the government and voted for the left. Rural anger with the government has only increased in the past year, with the main causes of this rural anger with local elected officials are things such as spending cuts, reductions in public services (local post offices, local hospitals, local schools), the abolition of the taxe professionelle (by which local government was financed), the 2010 territorial reform, local divisions and, in some regions (especially the old UDF strongholds), the elitist (bling-bling) and right-wing style of the government which breaks from the more consensual, moderate centre-right styles of governance which these rural centrists preferred. These local elected officials, in large part, express the ire of their constituents, and those constituents in rural France might show their discontent with the right in big, perhaps unexpected, ways in 2012.

Next stop on the road to 2012: the high-stakes left-wing open primary on October 9. A preview post with all the candidates will be up between now and then.

France 2012: Primaryfest

France only votes on April 22 and May 6, 2012 but that hasn’t kept certain parties to hold their primaries way before then. All combining with DSKgate and the PS primaries in October to make people think that the election is being held next week rather than in nearly ten months. I’ll let the dust settle on the PS primaries before starting coverage of those, but two important nominating events/primaries have been held: the Communist Party (PCF) between June 16 and 18, and the first round of the Europe Écologie – Les Verts (EELV) primaries between June 16 and 24.

PCF Internal vote

Since the pitiful 1.93% won by the PCF’s Marie-George Buffet in 2007, the PCF has been desperately looking for a way to kick-start a party which is widely perceived to be approaching its deathbed. Since 2009, that effort at regeneration has taken the form of a close alliance with the Left Party (PG) founded in 2008 by former PS cabinet minister Jean-Luc Mélenchon. That alliance, styled Left Front (FG) did do some wonders for the PCF: the FG won 6% in the 2009 European elections, 5.8% in the 2010 regional elections and roughly 8% in cantonal elections earlier this year. But from the PCF’s standpoint, the problem with the FG is that it has become increasingly subjected to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s desires and personality. Though his party (the PG) would not exist in any viable shape or form without the PCF’s support, Mélenchon has a charisma, personality and fiery passion which is totally absent from the PCF Politburo. In sharp contrast to the fiery ambitious Mélenchon, the PCF’s boss, Pierre Laurent, appears to be a nice but totally boring bureaucratic apparatchik whose better fit is some dusty Moscow office in 1970. Thus, in the hyper-mediatized world of presidential elections which are influenced so much by personality, a boring party boss is certainly not a good candidate and would risk being totally overshadowed by an ambitious man with a huge media presence (a lot of which consists of hurling jabs and insults at journalists).

It thus shouldn’t be too surprising that the PCF’s Politburo led by Laurent has been very keen on pushing forth an inevitable Mélenchon candidacy within the FG. While it may seem somewhat surprising that a party’s boss is pushing the candidacy of a deeply ambitious potential future rival, the PCF Politburo keenly understands that Mélenchon is basically the only viable option for the party which would, by all measures, be far weaker without the boost that the FG (and Mélenchon) provides to it. A strong result by the FG in 2012 increases the PCF-FG’s bargaining power against the PS ahead of both the June 2012 legislative elections and, depending on who wins on May 6, the potential place of the PCF in a hypothetical left-wing government coalition. A strong result, of course, also allows the PCF to survive.

Mélenchon, of course, didn’t wait for Laurent to mention the idea of him running 2012 to think about it. He announced his candidacy officially on January 21.

But the strategy of a Mélenchon candidacy within the FG has always faced the opposition of a strong minority within the PCF. Some oppose him because they dislike some former Socialist cabinet minister running the show, others fear that Mélenchon running the show will end up killing the PCF. At first it appeared as if, whatever form the PCF’s nominating event would take, the opposition to a Mélenchon candidacy would be diverse. In 2009, Alain Bocquet, an orthodox PCF deputy from the Nord announced his interest but didn’t take it much further than exploratory stage. Maxime Gremetz, the famously insane Stalinist ex-PCF deputy from the Somme announced his candidacy in January 21 as well but took it no further than that. André Gerin, a hardline orthodox deputy from the Rhône, announced his candidacy but finally backed out on June 5. The anti-Mélenchon chorus joined the bandwagon of André Chassaigne. Chassaigne, unlike the previous three, is not particularly known to be an orthodox but is a rather talented politician on his own. Chassaigne has a huge personal vote in his eastern Puy-de-Dôme constituency, which translated into a record 14% showing for his FG list in the 2010 regional elections in Auvergne. However, he obviously has low name recognition and falls far short of Mélenchon’s notoriety.

On June 3-5, the PCF national conference approved the leadership’s resolution which included a Mélenchon candidacy within a continued FG by a vote of 416 to 238. It also approved the organization of an ‘internal consultation’ (by mail) of contributing PCF members between June 16 and 18 on the basis of three options: a Mélenchon-FG candidacy, a Chassaigne-FG candidacy or a Emmanuel Dang Tran-PCF candidacy.

Roughly 69,200 members were eligible to vote, of which some 48,631 did so (70.25% turnout): results available online by federation

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (FG candidacy) 59.12%
André Chassaigne (FG candidacy) 36.82%
Emmanuel Dang Tran (PCF candidacy) 4.07%

While the Mélenchon candidacy was approved, there is obviously a strong minority of opponents to his candidacy within the PCF as expressed by the strong 36.8% showing by Chassaigne (and Dang Tran’s 4.1%, representing the hardcore orthodox faction). What that means for his candidacy is unclear, but it shouldn’t be as huge a case as some make it out to be. Mélenchon has the media presence and the fiery charisma to win a respectable (though perhaps not excellent) result if he plays his cards right. His current polling numbers oscillate between 6 and 8%, which is far better than the PCF could have hoped for with a Chassaigne or orthodox candidacy.

The PCF was nice enough to release the internal results, allowing us to shed light on the geographic divide of the PCF base. Chassaigne won some big federations (Nord, Val-de-Marne, Seine-Maritime,  Pas-de-Calais, Rhône) and a lot of the old communist strongholds. The Nord (probably Pas-de-Calais too) and Rhône results were likely influenced by the support of Gerin and Bocquet. Other wins, such as Meurthe-et-Moselle appear to be orthodox federations. Mélenchon swept the vast majority of small federations in the southwest and southeast in addition to strong showings in Ile-de-France. Some of his big federation wins were Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis, Bouches-du-Rhône, Hauts-de-Seine and Hérault. Dang Tran somehow won Haute-Saône (which isn’t his home department – he’s Parisian), though only 198 folks voted there. He also did well in the Aisne (28.8%) and Tarn (31%).

Europe Écologie – Les Verts Primary

The 2012 presidential ballot is both crucial and tricky from the new EELV party, the successor of the Greens. It is necessary that they run a candidate for obvious reasons, but in such an election more than any other election they lack the factors which led to their breakthrough success in 2009. Cohn-Bendit, the movement’s most prominent figure, had no interest in running. The Greens do have lots of talent – but aside from Cohn-Bendit and a few well-known figures, they lack many strong, modern, viable standard-bearers. Their two most prominent leaders both came out to play a prominent role.

Cohn-Bendit encouraged the candidacy of MEP Eva Joly, a Norwegian-born corruption-busting magistrate. Joly has relatively little political experience and is not very charismatic nor very used to the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics, but has a good profile as “the honest candidate” of sorts. She announced interest by August 2010, but ran her operation quite badly until recently.

Nicolas Hulot is very well known as a prominent telecologist and host of the successful nature show Ushuaïa on TF1. He almost ran in 2007, but backed out at the last minute as he got 5 out of 12 candidates to sign on to his “Pacte de l’écologie” (including the top 3 contenders). Hulot is a rather well-liked figure, and many Greens liked both his background out of politics and the strong media impact and media frenzy his candidacy would have on EELV. But he has numerous opponents, both outside and inside the party. Aside from the enemies made from his ‘shock films’ and reports, many criticize him for being an hypocrite media icon funded by EDF or L’Oréal (which aren’t too ecofriendly) and working for the broadly right-wing TF1. Within the party, most of his opposition comes from the party’s old more left-wing fundie faction and the establishment which aren’t fond of Hulot ruining the show for them. The party’s boss, Cécile Duflot, isn’t fond of him to say the least while Cohn-Bendit is visibly pissed at a lot of things within EELV and its creation and seems to be sitting it out.

There were also two other candidates: Henri Stoll, known as “the Alsatian” who is the Green mayor of Kayersberg (Haut-Rhin) and known for wearing a wooden tie; and Stéphane Lhomme, an anti-nuclear activist who hates Hulot with a passion.

The first ever ecolo primary was organized for all EELV (and the much smaller MEI led by Antoine Weachter) paying members as well as non-member sympathizers (‘cooperators’ in greeniespeak) both online and by mail. The first round was between June 16 and 24 (June 23 for e-voting) with results having been announced on June 29. A runoff will run from July 1 to 9, with results to be announced on June 29.

The campaign was rather harsh on both sides. Joly was accused by Hulot of preaching a restrictive and pessimistic view of environmentalism, while Lhomme and Joly (to a lesser extent) made a case of Hulot’s hyper-mediatization. Joly received support from the old Greens (a lot of whom are lefties): Mamère, Voynet, Lipietz, Contassot (plus lesser known oldies: Buchmann, Blandin, Rivasi) but also, among others, MEP Yannick Jadot (ex-Greenpeace), Corsican regionalist MEP François Alfonsi and Nantes MP François de Rugy. Hulot got the support of José Bové, Yves Cochet, Antoine Waechter, Denis Baupin but also former resistance figure Stéphane Hessel and homeless rights activist Augustin Legrand.

These things are hard to poll and few dared, but a Viavoice poll showed Hulot crushing Joly (though only 133 Greens were sampled out of 1005).

Turnout was a strong 77%, roughly 25,400 out of some 32,900 eligible voters.

Eva Joly 49.75%
Nicolas Hulot 40.22%
Henri Stoll 5.02%
Stéphane Lhomme 4.44%
Blank 0.37%

Joly will need to wait a bit longer for a quasi-certain consecration in the runoff (though everything, technically, is still possible) but her victory is a real shocker. Hulot had been widely assumed to be coasting to a triumph in the primary, but apparently the limited voting pool made for a very restrictive and thus unpredictable primary. Many Hulot supporters say Joly’s victory is a victory for the left within the party, a victory for both the old fundie-left (with a past in the old party) and the establishment which dislikes him. Aside from frustration, that view is actually quite correct. Joly probably won because of the fears of the party’s voting base (paying members, thus more likely to be old traditionalist ecologists rather than new Hulot-fans) of Hulot hijacking the party or shifting it into something out of touch with the Green movement’s past as a traditional political party.

This is all a great big disappointment to Hulot, who has quit his “job” to do this and may potentially be looking at launching an independent green candidacy on his own. While I doubt he’ll go that far, and will probably grudgingly accept defeat, if he did go it alone it would likely destroy the EELV movement. It’s a matter of opinion whether or not he or Joly would be better candidates. Hulot might have attracted some nice polling numbers from various voters, but how much of that support was solid as opposed to fickle ten-month out nonsense we’ll never know. If he could have led a political campaign despite lacking political-electoral experience we’ll also probably never know. Joly might reassure the Green base, but likely has less of a chance at breaking out to voters than Hulot might have had though she could do well if she plays the ethical card well. So far she has proven that she has pretty mediocre campaigning skills and her pessimistic/restrictive view of ecology (as Hulot accused her of holding) might scare away some hesitating voters. Pollsters have traditionally shown her lower than Hulot, who won some very high polling numbers (sometimes over 10% in some polls), but the latest Ifop poll had her performing as well (6.5%) as Hulot though a CSA poll had her lower (4-5%) than Hulot (7-9%).

The good news in all this primaryfest is that the fun has only begun. The massive French political happening of 2011, the massive PS primary is happening in October!