French election maps

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I understood that you did not mean to refer to the FN or Greens as 'clerical parties', I must have phrased my answer incorrectly. In my long-winded explanation, I tried to demonstrate that, on the contrary, we should normally expect a clerical tradition and strong religious practice to limit (rather than boost) support for those two parties.

The Christian left tradition in France has been quite important and influential, but it has not been associated with the Green Party as much as the CFDT or the PSU/New Left; although they did have a significant impact on the environmentalist movement. Many proponents of Emmanuel Mounier's 'personalism' ideology in the interwar era aligned with the left and socialism in the postwar era. The CFDT, a left-wing reformist trade union founded in 1964 as an offshoot (non-confessional and leftist) of the CFTC, has a very strong Christian left/'personalist' tradition. They also formed the backbone of social movements and organizations such as the JAC, JA, JOC. Politically, many progressive Catholics joined the New Left/Second Left in the 1950s and 1960s, which rejected the traditional Marxist dogma, the staleness and contradictions of the SFIO and the totalitarianism of the PCF; and embraced social movements and new progressive ideologies (Mai 68, self-management, feminism, pacifism, decentralization, anti colonialism, moral liberalism, sexual liberation and of course environmentalism). Politically, this New Left ideology was represented by the PSA/PSU, never very strong electorally or institutionally but which played a fundamental role in the creation of the post-SFIO non-communist left in France and had a disproportionate influence on the modern PS/left, in part because it included many talented leaders (Michel Rocard, PMF, Alain Savary etc). The PSU declined after 1969, and moderates such as Rocard left the party to join the PS in 1974; in the PS, Rocard formed the 'rightist' opposition to Mitterrand's party line (1979 Congress).

The political influence of the movement should not be downplayed. The Christian left has had a major influence on the PS, through leaders such as Rocard, Pierre Mauroy or Jacques Delors. The activism and grassroots bases of movements such as the CFDT, JAC, JA or JOC played a major role, among other factors, in the PS' substantial inroads in Brittany, Lower Normandy and the inner west. The CFDT/Christian left tradition remains fairly important in departments such as the Nord, but also Brittany or the west. But, all this to say, the Christian left's mark on French politics was with the PS more so than the Greens (although the environmental movement was no doubt influenced by it as well).

As for the southwest, the utter partisan domination of the PS in most of the region should indeed not be underestimated (particularly for the Greens, whose electorate overlaps a lot with that of the modern PS). Many PS feds in those departments are quite powerful, even if they are not 'powerhouses' like the PS-59 or PS-13 are.

On another comment, the "disenfranchised blue-collar base" can explain the FN electorate pretty well in general, but it can never be the only explanation. The FN is not universally strong in working-class or post-industrial towns, and this is particularly true in the SW and central France: the FN has never been particularly huge in Bordeaux's proletarian hinterland (Bègles, Villenave-d'Ornon, Cenon, Lormont, Floirac) and their votes in industrial islands such as Lannemezan, Lavelanet or mining towns such as Carmaux or Decazeville have never been anything to write home about.

As for the Greens, what I mentioned above largely holds true for the Atlantic SW as well. There are a lot of hunters in the area, as shown by the huge support for CPNT in the Médoc and other parts of the region (particularly parts of Béarn or in the Pyrénées) - and the enmity between greenies and hunters is rather obvious; the Landes is a PS stronghold, but also a fairly rural department with few major cities and certainly no large concentration of potential/usual Green supporters. Once you get in the Garonne valley, the Blayais and l'Entre-Deux-Mers; there are a lot of shopkeepers, blue-collar workers, lower middle-classes, fruits and vegetable producers and less affluent small winemakers (whose wine is less prestigious than Saint-Émilion, Sauternes or Médoc) - many of whom vote FN (see FN strength in the Garonne valley or Blayais in Gironde). The tourist clientele in big resorts in the region (Arcachon, Capbreton, Biarritz) tend to be pretty bourgeois and not fond of the Greens. It's not the more family-oriented, somewhat eco-friendly and nature tourism of Brittany; closer to the kind of bourgeois and traditional/intensive tourism near Les Sables-d'Olonne in Vendée or La Baule in Loire-Atlantique.

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The wider Parisian basin now forms some kind of giant metropolis where people in small towns commute to Paris but also towns such as Rouen, Evreux, Chartres, Orléans, Beauvais, Creil or Château-Thierry. Besides, places like the Vexin (in the Eure) have always been closer to Paris and its region than to 'their' regions. So the FN support is definitely périurbain, a lot of it 'périurbain subi' as poorer lower middle-class employees get 'forced' out of costly urban centres like Paris and need to move further and further out into formerly quaint rural areas which are now a mish-mash of bedroom communities, village-type towns with new suburban housing and so forth. Demographically, it is not homogeneous but it could be described as lower middle-class, generally young or middle-aged, home owners (but with mortgages, household debt and so forth), basic educational qualifications (few with uni degrees), private sector employees with low wages and low unemployment. Places which fit this description, on the remote outskirts of IDF but also in the Loiret, Vexin (Eure), northern Yonne, southern Aisne and southern Oise have a very high FN vote. There are also a number of old industrial centres (or railway hubs/cités cheminotes) in this region: Gisors, Fleury-sur-Andelle, Creil, Montataire, Nogent-sur-Oise, Montargis etc; the FN usually does pretty well in those towns as well.

But the trend is that the FN vote is now getting higher and higher in more rural areas, which aren't really exurban. This has been the trend since 1995, and in 2007 Le Pen's vote held up way better in rural areas in the east while he lost quite a bit in the 'périurbain', see the 2002-2007 swing map. Sarkozy's rhetoric of 'the value/virtue of work', 'the France which gets up early (la France qui se lève tôt)', individual responsibility, authority, law-and-order and his opposition to stuff like 'l'assistanat' (welfare queens in America), the 'liberal bobo elites' boogeymen and so forth all played well in the périurbain. The rural areas where the FN is doing extremely well in rural eastern France tend to be low income, blue-collar and very marginalized/isolated in the modern economy; there are few jobs or opportunities, forcing people to commute (l'ouvrier caché/'hidden worker' thesis, developed in Alsace) to mid-size towns, demographic decline (including, in a lot of cases, aging population) and a hollowing out of public services (local post offices closing etc). Panzergirl's appeal to 'invisible' and 'voiceless' people had a particularly strong appeal in 2012. Ifop's study (see page 18, http://www.partisocialisterhone.fr/wp-content/2012/07/IFOP-geographie-des-votes-a-la-presidentielle.pdf) showed that the FN vote, since 2007, picks up again in communes over 100km from 200k+ urban centres (but peaks at 30-50km from those places). In rural areas, a lot of the FN vote tends to be a very alienated protest vote, with right-wing/conservative origins, which might be more reticent towards voting for the UMP in a left-right runoff than your average périurbain subi FN voter.

On the early FN maps (1980s, but also early 1990s up until 1995 or 1998) you will notice that the FN polled very well in Eure-et-Loir's 2nd constituency but that it has since dropped off quite a bit there. That constituency includes Dreux, which practically everybody who knows French politics a bit recognizes as the place where the FN was really 'born' as a serious political player in a 1983 by-election. Dreux is a historically left-wing (socialist) industrial and working-class town which attracted a large foreign (North African/Muslim) workforce in the 1960s, and faced major urban decay/post-industrial problems in the late 1970s and 1980s. The FN had some of its first electoral successes there in the 1982 cantonal elections, and in a 1983 municipal by-election, a FN list led by Jean-Pierre Stirbois (former secretary-general of the FN in the 1980s) won 16% of the vote and merged with the RPR-UDF list which won the runoff (the first right-FN alliance). The RPR-FN alliance at the municipal level collapsed by the 1989 municipal elections, but the Stirbois family (Jean-Pierre, who died in 1988, and then his wife Marie-France Stirbois) built a very strong FN local machine in the Drouais. Marie-France Stirbois won a legislative by-election in the 2nd constituency in 1989; until her defeat in 1993 she was the only FN deputy (after Yann Piat left the party). She was also the general councillor for Dreux-Ouest between 1994 and 2001. The local FN machine collapsed when Stirbois packed her bags and moved to Nice in 1998. It was hurt by the MNR split, and it has been incompetent and useless since then (it could not even put together a list for the last local elections). Panzergirl won only 15% in Dreux in 2012, though she did better in the Drouais countryside.

Apologies for the long posts!

[Хahar 🤔]

You certainly don't need to apologize for long posts. I've been reading these with interest.

[Franknburger]

I love doing this and French electoral geography is the best thing on earth.

I love that you love doing it- there is a lot to learn form about this fascinating, so close and yet so different country

A few takeaways and issues:
I was not aware of the fact that much of "rural" north-eastern France has a similar socio-economic structure as the remainder of low-mountainous central Europe (i.e. central / southern Germany, non-alpine Austria & Switzerland, Czech Republic, etc.) namely strong industrialisation, dominated by small and medium enterprises, and a comparatively small agricultural base (I took this info from your link - great source indeed). If you think about it, it comes as no surprise, but, as that article remarks - one tends to think of rural France as being agricultural, with the occasional winery and cheese maker here and there, and not as extension of Swiss and Baden-Würtemberg's metal processing and machine-building across the Jura and Rhine, respectively. And, of course, if half of Palatinate commutes 40-50 km each day to work with BASF in Ludwigshafen, to spend the evening back in the village working on the private vineyard, why should it be any different in Alsace.

So, in essence, a key reason for the FN's strength is a strong blue-collar population, threatened by marginalisation, that is traditionally leaning to the right (due to its village / small-town background, as well as regional particularities), and thus not expressing opposition by voting against the government, but by voting FN. Catholic adherence should dampen this effect, but isn't anymore (at least not as it used to do), as secularisation is progressing.  Protestants lack this "dampening factor" and have been swinging earlier and/or stronger towards FN. Common pattern, observable in the 1930's evolution of the NSDAP vote  in Germany and, more recently, for NPD voting in parts of Eastern Germany (which are typically "rural" and characterised by high unemployment and outmigration, especially of young females).

As you appear to have canton data at hand, it would be interesting to check whether cross-border cooperation has an influence on the voting. During the aforementioned study tour, I was surprised to learn how many Alsatians  work in Germany. A medium-scale machine builder that we visited stated that a quarter of his employees were French. On the other hand, quite a number of Germans have taken residence in Alsace (the best deal seems to be working in Germany - better social security - and living in France - lower taxes).  This German immigration appears to have not always been welcomed by locals, especially in smaller communities. As there is only a limited number of bridges across the Rhine, effects should be pretty localised, probably restricted to some 10-15 km radius around each bridge. Are there any specific voting patterns that may relate to cross-border work and immigration, e.g. an unusual vote polarisation (stronger pro-European / 'greener' vote of those commuting to Germany, higher FN vote share of the non-commuters that are alienated by immigrating Germans)?

I furthermore wonder whether there are different voting patterns between "native Alsatians" and people that have immigrated from other parts of France. At first sight, the comparison between l'Alsace bossue and Strasbourg might give some orientation on this. However, a colleague of mine used to work several years in Saverne, and lived in l'Alsace bossue, which leads me to interfere that even this area is much less culturally Alsatian than it used to be 50 years ago. Nevertheless, looking at the quotes in your linked article, I tend to think that many of the interviewed "ouvriers" were not only hampered in their expression by limited education, but also by the fact that French was not their mother tongue. As thus, we might have the typical assimilation phenomenon here: Dual marginalisation, economically and linguistically, resulting in a - seemingly paradox - nationalist voting pattern. The cognitive dissonance between culturally being Alsatian, but socially forced to act French, is resolved by affirmatively voting nationalist in repugnance of "aliens" (saying "the Turks", "the students", meaning "the Alsatian in me"). A similar pattern can be observed in the Sorbian areas in Southern Brandenburg and Eastern Saxony, which stand out as NPD strongholds.

[Franknburger]

If my theory on the "assimilation phenomenon" is correct, it should not only apply to the Alsace, but also to Flandre maritime. And, it apparently does, especially for 1995.

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I was not aware of the fact that much of "rural" north-eastern France has a similar socio-economic structure as the remainder of low-mountainous central Europe (i.e. central / southern Germany, non-alpine Austria & Switzerland, Czech Republic, etc.) namely strong industrialisation, dominated by small and medium enterprises, and a comparatively small agricultural base (I took this info from your link - great source indeed). If you think about it, it comes as no surprise, but, as that article remarks - one tends to think of rural France as being agricultural, with the occasional winery and cheese maker here and there, and not as extension of Swiss and Baden-Würtemberg's metal processing and machine-building across the Jura and Rhine, respectively. And, of course, if half of Palatinate commutes 40-50 km each day to work with BASF in Ludwigshafen, to spend the evening back in the village working on the private vineyard, why should it be any different in Alsace.

It is indeed a common misconception in France (and around the world) that only farmers on tractors live in "rural" areas and that the only thing going on there is farming. This is not the case, especially not in NE France, which has been a fairly blue-collar and industrialized region for decades now. I made this map showing the largest socioprofessional category by canton/city in 1968, when about 13% of the population were agriculteurs exploitants (farm head, or farm assistant/partner; not salaried agricultural workers). You can see that "rural" NE France was not very "agricultural", even then, unlike Brittany, the inner west, the Limousin or Massif Central.

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There seems to be, in Alsace, a tenuous link between crossborder commuters and a lower FN vote. The FN vote is lower in  Saint-Louis, a major town in the Sundgau right across from Basel and which has a lot of crossborder commuters to Switzerland or Germany, and the whole region has rather high incomes and low FN support (as of late). There is also the matter of Wissembourg (19% Panzergirl, commune) and Lauterbourg (16% Panzergirl, commune), in the north, where there might be crossborder commuters (especially in Lauterbourg, I would suspect, given the proximity to Karlsruhe. And if the Green vote there is not strikingly high, all of these places voted yes in 2005. However, these are also historically Catholic and quite clerical regions, so confessional ties and religious practice might be a compounding factor in these cases.

That being said, the FN vote remains quite high - often very high - in smaller towns on the Rhine. I would compare this to the percentage of foreigners in the commune, but the government's atlas on such stuff (http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/) isn't working for me again (the French government is horrible).

Alsace is not the only region where such patterns are apparent. They are even more obvious in the area surrounding Geneva, which has a much larger crossborder commuter population (mixed in with a population of highly-educated foreign diplomats, academics, researchers etc). The FN vote in the cantons of Gex (13%) and Ferney-Voltaire (11%) in the Ain as well as Saint-Julien-en-Genevois in Haute-Savoie (14%) are low. There are lot of well-educated, affluent white collar professionals who commute to work in Switzerland (often for academic research or for international organizations) or who work in France for things such as CERN. The FN vote in all those places is considerably below national average, the Green vote is strong and the pro-European vote is very high (55-65% in 2005). For example:

Ferney-Voltaire (commune): Panzergirl 8.9%, Greens 2009 22.5%, OUI 63%
Prévessin-Moëns: Panzergirl 9.3%, Greens 25.7%, OUI 72%
Divonne-les-Bains: Panzergirl 10.6%, Greens 22.2%, OUI 65%
Gex: Panzergirl 14.3%, Greens 26.5%, OUI 56.6%
Saint-Genis-Pouilly: Panzergirl 13.4%, Greens 24.3%, OUI 59.1%
Thoiry: Panzergirl 12.5%, Greens 27.4%, OUI 62.3%
Saint-Julien-en-Genevois: Panzergirl 12.7%, Greens 23.8%, OUI 62.8%
Veigy-Foncenex: Panzergirl 13.1%, Greens 22%, OUI 58%

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Some commentators have tried to describe the FN vote in Alsace as a regional peculiarity or particularity; others (like Schwengler, who wrote the article I mentioned) dismiss that idea. While the FN vote developed 'earlier' than in rural 'inland' Lorraine, Burgundy or Champagne; I admittedly agree with Schwengler that describing the FN vote as a regional factor is not really accurate.

The hypothesis you bring up is quite interesting. Unfortunately, I have neither seen nor read much serious academic research on this particular topic or hypothesis (but it is a question which interests me a lot). This old (1998) article from Le Monde Diplomatique came up with a similar hypothesis, which you might find interesting. I'm not sure if I agree with this idea, but it did bring up some interesting points.

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The Alsatian dialect is still spoken by about 30-40% of the population, primarily seniors in rural northern Bas-Rhin. It has declined since 1940 and spectacularly so since 1960, French has really become the mother tongue (and often only language) for a majority of the population and it is, obviously, the sole language of work/general education/public life. And while Alsatian has resisted better than Breton or other metropolitan regional languages, the linguistic policies of the French government (since 1945 in the case of Alsace) have created an environment where regional languages were traditionally frowned upon by the state and, for a lot of Alsatian speakers, created a climate where they were not overly activist or concerned about their language and policies to defend/uphold it. There are, to be sure, a number of Alsatian speakers (like Breton speakers) who are activists and militant about their language and have led campaigns for bilingual (trilingual with German in Alsace) education (more success in recent years) and so forth; but they are a minority, and as voters I believe they would be more inclined to vote for the Greens who have been unambiguous in their defense of regional languages.
(Insee study on Alsatian language, 2002: http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/alsace/themes/cpar12_1.pdf)

The FN has tended to play a contradictory game on the issue, in contrast. In Corsica, the Le Pens have usually won a good number of nationalist voters (Corsican nationalism has a strong xenophobic element) - especially in 2012 - and Panzergirl did not hesitate to play, hypocritically, a very regionalist note when she campaigned in Ajaccio - finishing her rally with the Corsican national anthem. Given that Alsatian regionalism is also rather right-wing and isolationist, one could think a similar factor is at work for the FN in Alsace as well. On the other hand, the FN also bills itself as a defender of national unity and the French state against regional nationalisms and communitarianism. It is one of the lone opponents to the creation of a single regional assembly in Alsace (merging the regional and departmental legislatures) which will be voted on in a few weeks (in April, not sure of the date); but at the same time, I recall that Patrick Binder, the FN boss in the region, claims to favour the teaching of Alsatian in schools and supports bi/trilingualism.

I must admit that I am a bit skeptical to your hypothesis, though I can neither prove it or disprove it. I still think that, by far, the traditional variables (education, socioprofessional status, income/class, distance to urban centres) plays a much larger role in explaining the FN vote in Alsace (and other regions); and the decline of the FN vote in urban Alsace is a recent phenomenon which is in line with the national trend of the FN losing strength quite rapidly in almost every single major urban centre. We should also take into account that most voters in that region, with the exception of older voters, would have been educated and socialized (post-1960s) primarily in French.

In Flanders, I would think the FN vote is also primarily due to the usual demographic factors: it is also a pretty blue-collar region, with many small industrial towns (Dunkirk, Gravelines, Watten, Hazebrouck, Merville); and it also a typically ex-rural, 'exurban' type of region with few local opportunities or jobs.

[Franknburger]

There seems to be, in Alsace, a tenuous link between crossborder commuters and a lower FN vote. The FN vote is lower in  Saint-Louis, a major town in the Sundgau right across from Basel and which has a lot of crossborder commuters to Switzerland or Germany, and the whole region has rather high incomes and low FN support (as of late). There is also the matter of Wissembourg (19% Panzergirl, commune) and Lauterbourg (16% Panzergirl, commune), in the north, where there might be crossborder commuters (especially in Lauterbourg, I would suspect, given the proximity to Karlsruhe. And if the Green vote there is not strikingly high, all of these places voted yes in 2005. However, these are also historically Catholic and quite clerical regions, so confessional ties and religious practice might be a compounding factor in these cases.

The Sundgau is showing up so clearly as low FN territory on your maps that I did not even mention it. As to Lauterbourg and Wissembourg, cross-border commuting might not only go towards Karlsruhe, but also towards the Daimler Benz truck factories in Rastatt and Wörth (their main truck production sites worldwide). This, in turn, might explain lower Green votes, which should not be the favourite party of truck assembly workers. [Note in this respect that the Rhineland-Palatinate transport authorities have over the last years put quite some effort in cross-border train connections from Lauterbourg & Wissembourg to Wörth (hourly trains, 17 min. from Lauterbourg, 36 min. from Wissembourg, 7 min. walk from Wörth train station to the Daimler plant)]

That being said, the FN vote remains quite high - often very high - in smaller towns on the Rhine. I would compare this to the percentage of foreigners in the commune, but the government's atlas on such stuff (http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/) isn't working for me again (the French government is horrible).

The link does neither work for me. Anyway, as long there is no further breakdown on nationalities (especially Germans/ Swiss vs. Turks / Maghreb) available, I wonder how much the figures could really tell us.

Nevertheless, a community-level analysis for the area south of Strasbourg might be interesting, as bridges there are less frequent than further to the north. By my count, there are bridges across the Rhine near Eschau / Illkirch, Marckolsheim, Vogelsheim / Neuf-Brisach, Fessenheim, Chalampé, Otmarsheim, and St. Louis. Especially the 50km strip between Eschau and Mackolsheim could be interesting to analyse for local variation.
A similar analysis for Sarregemuines - one of the few arrondissements in the region where FN still increased its vote share in 2002 - might be equally telling. I would assume that most of the FN growth there came from the eastern part of the canton, which has rather poor road connection to Germany, while the western part, especially Sarregemuines proper, could have swung against FN.  Within the arrondissement de Wissembourg, I would assume the opposite pattern - the north-eastern part, including the town of Wissembourg,  having less FN votes than the south-western part.

[Franknburger]

Some commentators have tried to describe the FN vote in Alsace as a regional peculiarity or particularity; others (like Schwengler, who wrote the article I mentioned) dismiss that idea. While the FN vote developed 'earlier' than in rural 'inland' Lorraine, Burgundy or Champagne; I admittedly agree with Schwengler that describing the FN vote as a regional factor is not really accurate.

From all that I have seen so far (thanks again for the great information you provide), it has become clear that the rural blue-collar FN vote is definitely not a regional phenomenon that is unique to Alsace, but common for most of France except the inland south-central areas.

Nevertheless, the question remains as to why this phenomenon (a) has appeared so early and strongly in Alsace, even though the region did not have any Poujadist tradition, and (b) why FN votes across most of Alsace are now declining steadily, in contrast to many other "rural" areas (Picardie, Champagne-Ardennes, Limousin), where FN growth continues to be strong. Both facts indicate to me that, aside from socio-economic factors, demographic patterns may play a role as well.

The Alsatian dialect is still spoken by about 30-40% of the population, primarily seniors in rural northern Bas-Rhin. It has declined since 1940 and spectacularly so since 1960, French has really become the mother tongue (and often only language) for a majority of the population and it is, obviously, the sole language of work/general education/public life.
(Insee study on Alsatian language, 2002: http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/alsace/themes/cpar12_1.pdf)

From your linked article I take that Saverne-Sarre Union, i.e. the area investigated by Schwengler, is among the strongest Alsatian-speaking regions ("plus de la moitié des adultes"), Since the "rural" part, i.e. areas outside Saverne, should have higher shares of Alsatian-speakers (probably 60% or more), it is pretty safe to infer that a good part of FN voters in l'Alsace bossue are native Alsatian speakers.
The interviews cited by Schwengler furthermore indicate a particular strong FN support in the 45-65 age group (some retirees, others talking about "copains" older than 50, etc.). Unfortunately, I could not find any information about when these interviews were taken, but sometimes around 1997-1999 seems likely. As thus, Schwengler's work points at extraordinarily strong FN support among male, blue-collar, native Alsatian speakers born between 1935 and 1955, That is exactly the generation which should have suffered the strongest assimilation pressure (post WW II, pre European Community). Moreover, transfer of Alsatian to the next generation began to steeply decline in the early 1960s, i.e. for the children of this 1935-1955 generation. 

The rest is demographical basics - the "assimilation generation" slowly dies out (the male part faster than the presumably less FN-affine female part), and is replaced by a young generation for which assimilation is much less an issue than for their grandparents. Hence, FN vote shares gradually recede to the French standard (if there is anything like that).


1999 data.

The hypothesis you bring up is quite interesting. Unfortunately, I have neither seen nor read much serious academic research on this particular topic or hypothesis (but it is a question which interests me a lot). This old (1998) article from Le Monde Diplomatique came up with a similar hypothesis, which you might find interesting. I'm not sure if I agree with this idea, but it did bring up some interesting points.

The Le Monde article describes pretty well what we heard and felt during that study tour. I vividly remember the President of the Strasbourg Chamber of Commerce enraging himself on local, regional and national politicians problematizing Alsace's relation to Germany, instead of recognising the opportunities it creates for, e.g., Strasbourg's retail sector or the Strasbourg airport. ("What are they discussing about? We are having the third lowest unemployment rate in all of France! Where is the problem?"). [N.B.: He was referring especially to UMP politicians - not the typical targets of a CC president,]

I first caught attention of the "assimilation phenomenon" through an early 1990s German newspaper article citing Polish comments on the emergence of Neo-Nazis in Germany. These Polish comments linked the phenomenon to assimilation pressure from the unification process, resulting in cognitive dissonance, which was resolved through affirmative "pro-German" action, coupled with xenophobia (including anti-Polish sentiment). Intrigued by this idea, I have over the years tried to apply it to several other contexts, including anti-Western sentiment in Muslim countries, and found it working astonishingly well. [I have for some time already intended to do a separate thread on socio-economic change in the Muslim world, but so far haven't found the time for it].

As to Sorbian areas, the only research I have available is this analysis of NPD/DVU performance during the 2008 Brandenburg state elections (in German), which concludes:

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In other words: Sorbian areas show up as far-right strongholds, and none of the traditional hypotheses can explain why.
 

[Franknburger]

Addendum to my first post of today: I found this quite recent (Dec. 2011) INSEE dossier on Alsatians working in Germany and Switzerland. Nice map on p.3 - would be interesting to compare to 2007 and 2012 village-level election maps (if available).

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The link does neither work for me. Anyway, as long there is no further breakdown on nationalities (especially Germans/ Swiss vs. Turks / Maghreb) available, I wonder how much the figures could really tell us.

My general assumption would be that any foreigners in small towns outside urban and suburban areas would be far more likely to be white EU/European nationals (Germans/Swiss) rather than North African or Turkish, given how non-white foreign population is concentrated in urban/suburban/industrial areas or in agricultural areas dependent on a foreign workforce (fruit/vegetables farming in the SE, winemakers).

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I'm a bit pressed for time, so I can't do tons of communal analysis but you can easily look at the data (commune or other levels) by yourself on the OVF (http://franceo3.geoclip.fr/index.php?profil=FV#i=xd_pres2012_t1.nuance_tete_t1;l=fr;v=map12). From a cursory first glance, there does not appear to be significant differences between communes with a bridge and surrounding areas. I believe the same is the case for Sarreguemines.

It is very important to point out (not sure why I didn't make this clear earlier with the map) that a lot of the 1995-2002 swings against the FN are due to Bruno Mégret's MNR candidacy which did rather well in rural Alsace and eastern Moselle in 2002. Although Alsace was one of the regions where Le Pen badly underperformed the theoretical FN+MNR first round total in the runoff in 2002, the first round total far-right (FN+MNR) vote was universally higher than the 1995 FN vote in Sarreguemines and rural Alsace.

From all that I have seen so far (thanks again for the great information you provide), it has become clear that the rural blue-collar FN vote is definitely not a regional phenomenon that is unique to Alsace, but common for most of France except the inland south-central areas.

Nevertheless, the question remains as to why this phenomenon (a) has appeared so early and strongly in Alsace, even though the region did not have any Poujadist tradition, and (b) why FN votes across most of Alsace are now declining steadily, in contrast to many other "rural" areas (Picardie, Champagne-Ardennes, Limousin), where FN growth continues to be strong. Both facts indicate to me that, aside from socio-economic factors, demographic patterns may play a role as well.

Reasons for (a) may include:
-Alsace's urbanization, given that the FN vote in 1984 developed almost exclusively around large urban/suburban areas or industrial towns (Alsace, of course, has both) and that the FN vote extended into rural/exurban areas from those points by 1988.

As for (b), a number of ideas have been proposed by various researchers:
-Low unemployment: while the FN can do well in areas with high or low unemployment, the areas where the FN is strongest with Panzergirl are those with high unemployment - like the industrial parts of Moselle. Alsace has very low unemployment rates by national standards, even in blue-collar regions like l'Alsace bossue. Moselle is still suffering the effects of deindustrialization (see: Gandrange, obviously) while Alsace is not being hit as hard. Its closer economic integration with Germany might be a contributing factor.

-Urban/suburban population growth: clearly, the 2002-2012 map shows that the FN vote declined, in very large part, in urban or suburban areas: Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Colmar, the Sundgau, Metz, Forbach proper, Sarreguemines proper, Nancy etc. The FN vote in 2012 was higher than the 2002 FN vote in the Bouxwiller/Sarre-Union area, Saales/Schirmeck, and in much of the Haut-Rhin outside urban areas.

-The "right-wing" vs. "ni-niste" FN vote: In her 2002 book Ces francais qui votent Le Pen, Nonna Mayer (a specialist on the FN) develops her argument around the existence of 2 FN electorates: one naturally far-right/right-wing and conservative, which voted for the RPR-UDF in the past and can still vote UMP without any problems, which tends to be older/more clerical/wealthier/slightly more educated/less blue-collar; and the protest/"ni-ni" voter who has no clear partisan affiliation (many come from the left), is not ideologically far-right and is younger/irreligious/poorer/unemployed or blue-collar/less educated. The FN vote in Alsace isn't anything like the FN vote in PACA, but the FN vote in Alsace is clearly not like the FN vote in the NPDC or even the bassin houiller in Moselle. Sarkozy primarily gained FN votes from "right-wing" FN voters in 2007 but didn't gain as much with "ni-ni" votes and the patterns were similar in 2012.

The Alsatian FN vote, imo, was/is less a vote of social despair and rejection of all parties (like the FN vote in the NPDC tends to be), but a more traditional conservative/far-right vote primarily concerned by immigration, security, national identity. This type of FN voter voted Sarko by the first round in 2007, and they generally held up pretty well for him in 2012. Alsace having lower unemployment also contributed, I would think; there would be less grounds for a "revolutionary" vote of despair/rejection. Panzergirl didn't do well in a demographically similar area, Cluses-Scionzier (Haute-Savoie): right-wing working-class area where Daddy got huge results in 95/02 (unemployment is also below average there, afaik).

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You do indeed bring up a very good point, but again I can neither prove it nor disprove it. Unfortunately, French work on electoral geography/voting patterns tends to shy away from explanations based on regional identity, regional particularities, dialects/languages and so forth (an interesting and worthwhile angle to explore, I would say).

As somebody who sympathizes very much with progressive regionalist movements, my view on all this is that there is very much a pensee unique on this topic in France which tends to either downplay, obscure or deny outright any kinds of regional diversities and clear regional particularities (on topics other than food/music/culture/dialect).

[Franknburger]

From all that I have seen so far (thanks again for the great information you provide), it has become clear that the rural blue-collar FN vote is definitely not a regional phenomenon that is unique to Alsace, but common for most of France except the inland south-central areas.

Nevertheless, the question remains as to why this phenomenon (a) has appeared so early and strongly in Alsace, even though the region did not have any Poujadist tradition, and (b) why FN votes across most of Alsace are now declining steadily, in contrast to many other "rural" areas (Picardie, Champagne-Ardennes, Limousin), where FN growth continues to be strong. Both facts indicate to me that, aside from socio-economic factors, demographic patterns may play a role as well.

Reasons for (a) may include:
-Alsace's urbanization, given that the FN vote in 1984 developed almost exclusively around large urban/suburban areas or industrial towns (Alsace, of course, has both) and that the FN vote extended into rural/exurban areas from those points by 1988.

Does not really convince me, at least not when looking at your maps (village-level maps might tell a different story, though). First of all, while the 1984 FN vote was strongest in large urban / suburban areas, it reached already more than 10.5% in most of Alsace / Lorraine, except for a few areas to the north-east of Strasbourg.
Secondly, how come the FN vote extending so strongly into 'rural' Alsace / Lorraine, without a similar phenomenon becoming apparent around Belfort, Nancy, or to the west of Metz?. I mean, look at the 1988 FN map - it is virtually screaming out "here is where the Romanic-Germanic language divide used to be".  [Btw. the 1988 map also appears to give a pretty good delineation of the more secularised parts of traditional provencal and langue d'oc speaking areas - might be an interesting issue for next week].

---

I have played around a bit with your OFV link, and made some interesting observations on 1995-2012 trends, but I am too tired now to write it all down - will do it tomorrow.

[Hash]

Please understand that I'm not, at all, disagreeing with your theories/hypotheses (as I have said numerous times). I'm kind of trying to play Devil's advocate (if I can use such a term) with these theories.

I do hope you're interested by other regions than Alsace, because as much as it's interesting, it's not the only interesting region in France.

[Franknburger]

Please understand that I'm not, at all, disagreeing with your theories/hypotheses (as I have said numerous times). I'm kind of trying to play Devil's advocate (if I can use such a term) with these theories.

Of course I understand that - as I appreciate dialectics as a means to gain deeper insight.

I do hope you're interested by other regions than Alsace, because as much as it's interesting, it's not the only interesting region in France.

Definitely - hence my comment yesterday on Provence and Languedoc, or earlier questions about the Larzac, Brittany and the Atlantic south-west.

To clarify my approach a bit: I like to look at new political movements first, as they tend to mark socio-economic changes. Once these changes have been identified, it may become easier to distinguish underlying, more stable patterns, which are shaping the political centre. Hence my interest in the FN and the Greens.
Within this approach, I find it interesting to discuss why certain patterns that ultimately become quite uniform (e.g. the 'rural' / exurban FN vote) appear earlier in some regions than in others (and maybe not appear at all in a third group of regions).  [Disclaimer - I have done quite some professional work on innovation generation and dissemination, including its spatial dimension].

And, of course, I try to base my learning to the extent possible on 'field experience', i.e. may first of all focus on regions that I already have visited. [Disclaimer II: These include (aside from Alsace): Rhone-Alpes (student exchange), Marseille / Cassis (holidays), Corsica (holidays), Provence  / Languedoc / Larzac (holidays), Charente Maritime / Ile de Ré (holidays), Flandre maritime (holidays), Pyrenées Atlantiique (another study tour, this time with a Georgian delegation), and, of course, Paris].  That does not mean I am not interested in other regions - to the opposite.

In that sense, I intended, once we have finished with the Alsace, to close up the FN part with a look at the Mediterranean coast and its 'hinterland'. Greens would be next, and with the Alsace and Ile de France already discussed, the obvious focus here is Rhône-Alpes (Normandy also looks interesting). After that - maybe a look at regionalist movements and their reflection on the other parties' vote, and then turning towards the political centre (PS vs. PR / UMP) ..

Having said that - everything you have published here so far has been highly interesting, and if there are other maps / patterns / processes you find worthwhile to present, please go ahead, I am sure I will like them as well .

 

[Franknburger]

That OVF site is really great - beats everything I have seen so far, including German electoral geographics sites!

I have used it to prepare 1995-2012 swing maps for the Le Pen family (canton level). First the national map, which shows a decline in the major urban centres, the Paris and Lyon peripheries, Alsace & Moselle, and Rhône-Alpes,  and gains almost everywhere else.



Now a close-up on Alsace / Moselle:



First of all, let's notice that in Alsace, the FM decline is as much a "rural" than an urban phenomenon. The "rural" cantons of Obernai and Barr, e.g., showed a much stronger decline in Le Pen votes than urban Colmar (Colmar-Sud even swung towards Le Pen).

Along the Rhine, two cantons with above-average pro Le Pen swing stand out, namely Seltz in the north and Neuf-Brisach south-east of Colmar. In Moselle, the Sarregemuines arrondissement, especially Rohrbach-les-Binche has swung quite strongly towards Le Pen. All aforementioned cases, however, were among the weakest Le Pen cantons in 1995, so their 2012 swing can to some extend be considered a reversion to the mean.

I have also done a community-level analysis, which, however, does not add much information, aside from indicating that south of Strasbourg, the FN vote along the Rhine tends to be slightly higher and more resilient the more distant a village is from the next bridge.

As i have uploaded the data to OVF, I may use it to prepare further close-ups of  canton- or community-level swing maps in case of interest

[Hash]

Random bump for this amusing map:



The Schwartzenberg/Sarajevo list was a leftie list which strongly supported humanitarian intervention in Bosnia. It was basically made up quasi-entirely of leftie academics, from good (Touraine) to bad (BHL!).

Patterns are nothing too extraordinary though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Random bump for this amusing map:



The Schwartzenberg/Sarajevo list was a leftie list which strongly supported humanitarian intervention in Bosnia. It was basically made up quasi-entirely of leftie academics, from good (Touraine) to bad (BHL!).

Patterns are nothing too extraordinary though.

I'm not sure, but doesn't it look somewhat like the old PSU?

[Hash]

Another, more famous, episode from 1994:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That looks surprisingly Commie like, at least in very general terms.

[Antonio the Sixth]

At least, a very "old left" pattern, with these very strong results on the mediterranean coast.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And also Picardy.

[big bad fab]

Another, more famous, episode from 1994:

May I say that this is marvelously predictive of the "new" FN electorate of the following years ?

"Popular" left, some "lost" rural areas, very old small-industries areas,...

Apart from Bouches-du-Rhône (but it was just the favourite son effect), these are the areas where Panzergirl has made the biggest gains.

[big bad fab]

Many of Hash's maps have become unreadable

[Hash]

Ugh Photobucket is acting up again. I'm really sorry guys, I'll try to fix that annoying thing somehow (eg: thank God for Google). To compensate, I should post some very interesting maps of 2007 and 2009 in the next few days before I leave.

[Hash]

Here's the surprise I was talking about:





Similar maps (and more) can be done at the precinct level for anywhere in France (which has more than one polling station) for 2007, 2009 and 2010 elections.