The French Front National Vote and its Sectorial Support

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.