French election maps

[Franknburger]

Just discovered this thread today. Obviously, you have already been posting quite a number of maps, but going through 630 posts can become a bit tiring. Thus, can you maybe point out relevant maps (side number is sufficient) that allow me to trace:

1.) Spatial evolution of Les Verts (and related groupings / candidates) - I read somewhere that the movement evolved simultaneously and together with the German anti-nuke / Grüne movement on the Upper Rhine, and it would be interesting to see whether this holds true, and some kind of territorial spread from the Alsace can be traced on electoral maps.

2. Front Nationale - historical strongholds and their evolution over time.

[Franknburger]

Since you've provided me with actual requests, the firsts in months, I might as well put some effort into this (but it will take longer)

I will do some stuff about 2002, 2007 and 2012 for the FN next.

Please feel free to ask away from clarifications/questions etc.

Thanks for the maps!

I'm curious about the 1984 EU Parliament map for the Greens, it seems there is quite some overlap of FN and Green strongholds (except for Normandy, I guess the Green's strength there was owed to La Hague).

Forgive my ignorance of pre-1980s French politics - could you explain in a few sentences why you have started the FN series with Poujadists and EXD?
The FN belt between Montpellier and Bordeaux - is it including Toulouse or running north of it?

I have the impression that some historical patterns are still shaping regional party allegiances. If it isn't too difficult, could you indicate the main medieval dvisions (English / Aquitaine, France proper, Burgundy/ Holy Roman Empire) with red lines on your maps (yeah, I know, borders changed quite often, and its a hell of a work unless you are using a SVG editor, so this is really only in case you have time for it and feel it might add some explanation of patterns).

[Franknburger]

I have the impression that some historical patterns are still shaping regional party allegiances. If it isn't too difficult, could you indicate the main medieval dvisions (English / Aquitaine, France proper, Burgundy/ Holy Roman Empire) with red lines on your maps (yeah, I know, borders changed quite often, and its a hell of a work unless you are using a SVG editor, so this is really only in case you have time for it and feel it might add some explanation of patterns).

I only use MS Paint, so I can't edit in other boundaries unless I do it by hand (and I won't).

Completely understood and accepted

I'm sure the apparent links with Medieval maps are merely coincidental, and certainly nobody has seriously suggested that there's any kind of direct link or correlation between the two. The bases of regional political allegiances are, despite everything, still heavily influenced by the religious divide.

Let me again apologise for my only superficial knowledge of French history - I am exploiting you to improve on it - but which religous divide? I always assumed the Huguenots were almost completely driven out of France after St. Bartholomew's Night.

I remember to have read somewhere (probably in a travel guide, so not neccessarily one of the most credible sources) that historic Cathar strongholds for quite some time have displayed specific political patterns. I also heard somewhere that the historic Anglo (Aquitanian) - French divide had reappeared during the French Revolution, which in turn has shaped political patterns until more recently. But let's have the maps first, then we may discuss on what is behind certain regional patterns.

I'm working on the Greens in 1984, a fairly weird map; but I feel there might be an error in the data ( France)
[/quote]

[Franknburger]

Just to let you know - I am reading, looking at patterns, trying to comprehend them, and will sooner or later come up with questions.

O.k.-maybe a few observations / questions already:
1) Following your approach on the clerical / anti-clerical divide, FN and the Greens both appear to be 'clerical' parties. Or - maybe that is a better interpretation - for both parties it has been easier to gain footholds in the clerical than in the non-clerical part of the electorate (probably because the latter is quite loyal to PS and the Communists). Why is party loyalty less pronounced among 'clericals'?
2.) Aside from the 'clerical' regions, both FN and the Greens also had pretty good results in the wider Paris periphery. Why?
3.) FN is having obvious problems in Brittany and Nomandy, even though both are 'clerical' regions. I understand to some extent that autonomy-minded Brittany might not be too keen on voting FN, but what is keeping the FN down in Normandy?
4.) Same question for the Greens as concerns the South-west.
5.) Out of curiosity - what were the Green and FN 'high watermarks' in Chambery (my daughter just returned from a student exchange there, her exchange partner will arrive here after Easter)? I was also surprised about the Green's lacklustre performance in the Larzac, since comparable areas in Germany like the Wendland are green strongholds. Any reasons?

[Franknburger]

What makes the German border regions go so strongly right? local farmers are very Christian?

Yep - I wanted to come to this point as well. You, Hash, have already mentioned one factor - strong Arab immigration to work in the Mulhouse car plant, which seems to be something the locals in this fairly traditional, small-town region had to get used to (looking at the maps, it seems the FN vote is on steady decline in southern Alsace since its 1995 peak).

Another factor I suspect is the FN taking up some votes of 'French immigrants' in this still culturally quite German area (comments welcome!).
[A few years ago, I organised a study-tour for a Moldavian-Romanian delegation on cross-border cooperation in the EU. We visited Gorlitz - Zgorcelec, and Kehl - Strasbourg, talking to Mayors, Chambers of Commerce, businesses, customs officials etc. In the final evaluation, I asked participants to sum up their impressions. They felt the German-Polish cooperation going much more smoothly, as both sides had no problems to accept each other as being different in terms of culture, economic profile etc.  Conversely, in spite of much higher economic integration, they felt the Strasbourg area - Ortenau cooperation hampered by the fact that both sides were so similar to each other culturally that they rather focused on working out their differences, than exploiting cooperation potentials. Asked which of the two experiences was more useful, they pointed at the German-French one, because it pretty much reminded them on their own.]

As to the other, very detailed comments:

ad 1.) I had formulated my question in a bit misunderstandable way. Of course, the FN is not a clerical party. The German Greens have a quite strong religious element, dating back to their roots in the West German peace movement, and the East German church-based opposition,  signified by people like former party head Petra Kelly or current top candidate Katrin Göring Eckardt, who is also head of the German Lutheran Synod. So it was quite interesting to learn that this element does not play that much of a role for the French Greens.
However, the question was not only why it was easier for FN and Greens to gain support in 'clerical regions' (you have answered this - because many of these regions have become much less clerical than they have been in the 1960s), but also why both are struggling in south-central France. You have given one reason already - their socio-economic base (disenfranchised blue-collar in the case of FN, younger high-educated urban in the case of the Greens) is not really strong there. Presumably, a second factor is continuous strong allegiance to 'red' parties, rooted in the anti-clerical tradition.

ad 2.) I had by intention used the term "wider Paris periphery' instead of Ile-de-France, because the area I wanted to refer to also includes Oise and  Eure, and, for FN, Eure-et-Loir, Loiret, and parts of Yonne, especially Sens. I am not sure whether these areas still belong to the "périurbain subi", or there are other factors at work. Compiegne, e.g., was quite a Green stronghold in 1989,  but has also been voting heavily FN in 2007 and 2012.

ad 4.) My question was more related to the Atlantic south-west, which in principle should  have some similarity to Brittany (tourism, strongly pro-European, etc.), possibly also some eco-minded young winegrowers. I don't know, however, how strong Basque autonomist parties, which might sap up some of the Green vote potential, are there. Anyway, I wait for the more recent maps, probably the picture will get clearer.

ad 5.) When I visited the Larzac back in 1985, it felt quite similar to the Wendland (well, as similar as the North German plain and the Massif Central can get), with hippie-type small businesses selling pottery or local honey, etc.. However, I tend to get the feeling that the French Greens are more of a pure ecological party, while the German Greens evolved from a coalition of ecologists, peace movement and euro-communists. in other words - the type of activist that in Germany would definitely have voted Green in the 1990s (today maybe also Linke), might have other preferences in France.

[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.

[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:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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).

[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.

[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

[Franknburger]

More forthcoming if there's any interest.

Now explain the pattern