10
“proletarised”. Whilst in the 1988 Presidential elections, Jean Marie Le Pen obtained merely
17% of the blue-collar worker vote, by 1995 he received 21% of their vote and in the 2002
Presidential ballot, he captured 26% of the blue collar workers (Mayer 2005).
27
Since the early 1990’s, there has been an increasing relevance in the Lepenist
electorate of the small businessmen, shopkeepers and craftsmen, as well as of the more
marginalised agricultural workers in rural areas (Ivaldi 2005). In terms of gender and religion,
the Lepenist voter is predominantly male, non-believer or non-practicing Catholic(Betz and
Immerfall 1998).
1.3. The 2007 Elections
A little background to the election is needed at this time. Chirac’s last term in office
(2002-2007) was far from being an easy task.
28
His presidency was plagued by a general
discontentment with his handling of public affairs, reaching its lowest point ever in June
2006 (16% of approval); almost exactly a year before the most recent race for the presidency.
See graph 1.1. Moreover, this disapproval of the President and of his government in general,
was easily channelled into increasing public unrest. Chirac’s last couple of years were
characterised by public demonstrations (student protests in 2005, labour protests in 2006)
and scandals (Clearstream affair, for instance).
29
The social, economic and political
deterioration that took place during this time, created the perfect opportunity for a heated
Presidential election, one in which third parties could potentially become the big winner.
Nonetheless, presidential elections in the Fifth Republic have always provided their
share of surprises (Miguet 2002). The 2007 election proved to be quite unexpected in, at
least, a couple of issues. First, in terms of the exceptional mobilisation rate that it generated
(Perrineau 2007b). By achieving an 84% turnout, the recent presidential ballot became the
third most attended election coming only a little below De Gaulle’s 1965 bid and Giscard’s
victory over Mitterrand in 1974.
30
Second, it was a relative moderate election despite a
polarising, well attended and long campaign.
31
And, finally, it was a most surprising election
in that it brought about a return of the French voters to the mainstream political parties and,
in that sense, it marked the “end of a cycle of negative politisation” (Perrineau 2007a).
27
This phenomenon has been deemed “gaucho-lepénisme” (left-wing lepenism) or even “ouvriéro-lepénisme”
(worker-lepenism), according to which French scholar we refer to (namely, Pascal Perrineau or Nonna Mayer).
28
It is important to remember that Chirac was elected in 2002 after having obtained the worst result ever for a
President seeking re-election. See Miguet, op. cit., p. 207.
29
As illustrated by the “no” to the referendum on the European Constitution in 1995 and his incapacity to
solve the crisis brought about by the CPE (contrat de premiere embauche).
30
This year’s first round ballot registered 16.2% abstention whilst the second round’s amounted to 16%. 1965
and 1974 reached the following levels of abstention for the rounds: 15.2%/15.7% and 15.8%/12.7%
respectively.
Source
“Dossier
Abstention”
from
TNS
Sofres
at
http://www.tnssofres.com/etudes/dossiers/d_abstention.htm
These results are even more striking in we bear
in mind that 2002 has been the least attended election of the French Fifth Republic.
31
On the interest that this campaign generated and the high levels of attention to it see Gérard Grunberg’s
interview at TNS Sofres
http://2007.tns-sofres.com/interview.php?id=379
Convention