French election maps

[Antonio the Sixth]

Maybe; I would argue that America's party system is slowly or rapidly becoming more like the current French tripolar system, but keeping on to the 2 party labels of D and R.

Currently France has a well defined Left, Center, and Right.

America has a very small Left (Squad/Progressives), fairly large Center (dominated by Democrats and a few Republicans like Murkowski, Meijer, Cheney, and Collins), and a robust, but alienating Right.

What is the comparative size of these voter blocs in 2010s-2020s France?

From last year's presidential election:

Here's another map - one I've been meaning to make since I saw the final results. I noticed you could break the electorate up in to three broad ideological blocs of almost equal size. Of course those categorizations are eminently contestable, but I think they still reveal some interesting things.

Left (Arthaud-Poutou-Mélenchon-Roussel-Hidalgo-Jadot): 31.95%
Liberal Right (Macron-Pécresse): 32.62%
Nationalist Right (Dupont-Aignan-Le Pen-Zemmour): 32.29%

That leaves out the unclassifiable Lassalle's 3.13%, but otherwise splits French voters into almost perfect thirds.

So, what does this 3-way divide look like mapped out? I finally took the time to find out:


For France, a genuinely shocking degree of geographic bias. The far-right bloc came out ahead in a solid majority of departments, and if France had an "Electoral College" it would be solidly ahead of it too. It of course wins overwhelmingly in the traditionally right-wing Mediterranean France, and in France's vast postindustrial Northeast, but also in large swathes of the country that don't have such a strong political identity, like the Centre region and even much of the traditionally left-wing Southwest. This is only partially explained by the nationalist bloc's weakness in IdF: even if you look at the non-IdF continental France only, the bloc only wins with a plurality of 34.66%, not that far from the liberals' 31.88%.

However, it is clear that the nationalist bloc is much weaker across France's globalized metropoles, and Departments anchored by one such tends to be strongholds for either the left or liberal bloc. On the liberal side, the Grand Ouest also really stands out as its last redoubt, along with the traditionally posh West side of IdF. Other areas of support includes also upscale areas like Haute-Savoie and Rhône, as well as a little redoubt of what might have once been Hollande Country in the Massif Central and Bayrou Country in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. As well as the expats and Pacific territories, where support for continued unionism with France usually translates into support for the center-right establishment.

As for the left, it (and this really cannot be stressed enough) dominated Ile-de-France, winning 39.99% in the region. Also in most non-Pacific DTOMs, where Mélenchon's scores were pretty staggering. Aside from that, its areas of support in non-Idf continental France tend to be anchored around metropoles like Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Grenoble. A few redoubts of rural leftism survived, like Ariège, Lot, Haute-Vienne and Hautes-Alpes, but those are just the remnants of once-vast swathes of leftist support across the South.