This paper will explore the case of the French Front national with regards to the sociological basis of its support. Is its electoral basis composed of blue-collar workers? Or is this basis rather formed of middle-class, service sector white collars?
Out of our doctoral research, two hypothesis can be made:
1. the composition of the FN electoral basis varies a lot across space. It thus may be more worker-based in some regions (for example in the Nord-Pas de Calais), more service-sector employees based in other regions (in the south east for example).
2. Across time, the FN electoral map has shifted towards a stronger east-northern basis. This would be the sign that its constituency is more thoroughly industrial and blue-collar based.
To assess these hypotheses, this paper uses multilevel, ecological models of the FN vote (at presidential elections, 1995-2012), at the “commune” level. It uses as independent variables the fine grained socio-professional breakdown of the population (in 42 categories) – alongside with other relevant contextual data.
This allows to distinguish among blue-collar workers and among white-collar, service sector workers, and thus to provide detailed empirical support (although not directly at the individual level) for answers to the questions asked by the call for papers.
