Work of the Foundation for Political Innovation (Fondapol) -in alliance with Cevipof and the OpinionWay Institute- and published on Monday night by The Figarothe study announces the color from its title: Political changes and government majority in a right-wing France. Because the Fondapol poll points, in effect, to the shift to the right of an ever-increasing proportion of French people – from the point of view of suffrage but also of concerns and values - and describes a country gradually conquered by a mistrust or even anger.
The protest vote advances but remains vague
The survey can claim two main advantages. On the one hand, it was held between April and June 2022, therefore parallel to the presidential and then legislative elections, and in this highly political climate. On the other hand, it is based on the answers of three cohorts of respondents, strong of more than 3000 people each.
Before examining the ideas professed by these panels, the survey makes some arithmetical observations. In the first round of the last presidential election, the cumulative scores of Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Éric Zemmour yielded a sum of 52.17% of the votes cast. Furthermore, a comparison weighing April 21, 2002 and April 10, 2022 shows an increase in votes considered protests between these first two rounds, with a total increase from 29.6% to 55.6%. The “electoral protest” – to use an expression used by pollsters – even climbed to 76.86% of the votes in the first round of the last legislative elections compared to 65.95% in the same phase of the 2017 electoral ballot.
However, it should be noted that the notion of a “protest vote” is not consensual. In the first place, because the idea of protest seems to overshadow belonging. In addition, the category adds electoral approaches or political sympathies that are not subversive to other observers. For example, the ballots given to the Nupes were paid for the total of the protest, as well as those destined for the RN, such as blank votes, the rate of abstention, etc.
“Three out of four French” want to “overturn the table”
Anyway, the study is rich in lessons. Our political columnist, Matthieu Croissandeau, stressed this Tuesday morning on our set: “We can clearly see an increase in radicalism, anger, people who want to change the system and overturn the table. If we add to that the legislative elections, abstention and blank voting, there are three out of four French people who have chosen to protest”.
If it is all of France that raises the tone, the red reaches some cheeks more easily than others. In fact, the protest is growing faster on the right (with a jump of 5.2 points between 2017 and 2022) than on the left (with a crescendo of 2.1 points).
Right-wing ideas spread
A phenomenon that also depends on the law of large numbers. It must be said that according to Fondapol, the platoon of the French right continues to grow. Adding all the votes given to the right or extreme right in the first round of the recent presidential elections -and adding to them the 47% of Emmanuel Macron who declares to share this sensitivity-, the survey reaches a capital that represents 53% of the votes cast.
Of course, it’s not just a piece of paper in a ballot box. The dynamic is also an ideological issue. “There is a paradox. We have heard a lot from the left since the legislative elections but in fact we see that it is the ideas of the right or even the extreme right that are making progress,” remarked our editorialist Matthieu Croissandeau.
“63% of voters think that immigrants do not share the values of our country or pose problems of coexistence, 56% that the unemployed could find work if they wanted and 50% that more freedoms are needed for business and less control state,” he said.
Esteem success for the NB
This “slide to the right of society” and the increased tensions in the mood that the pollsters speak of also explain the growing wind in the sails of the National Group, while the Republican runs out of fuel and the left is numerically in bad shape. conditions. form.
The Fondapol survey establishes in the first place that outside Europa Ecologie – Les Verts, no political formation has a more positive image with the French, with a level of 25%. In addition, 39% of those surveyed say they agree with the ideas defended by the National Rally. A cultural success that can only find a broader sociological translation.
“The levels of opinions favorable to the RN are now high in all social categories, and not only within the popular categories,” states the survey.
“We are in a form of normalization or even notoriety for Marine Le Pen’s party. It advances everywhere: in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, except Paris, among intermediate professions, executives”, our editorialist also specified when reading the study. . The rate of executives who voted for the National Group thus went from 5 to 13% between the first rounds of the 2017 and 2022 legislative elections.
Increasing clemency for Marine Le Pen
The rally in the National Rally is accompanied by increasingly lenient trials for Marine Le Pen. Only 29% of French people place him on the extreme right, and 31% even on the moderate right. This is also the case for 46% of supporters of Agrupación Nacional, while 61% of Republicans continue to see it as a far-right figure.
In addition, 36% of those surveyed declared themselves “favorable or very favorable” to Marine Le Pen. Certainly, they are the 53% to maintain the opposition of her. But this hostility reaches 61% and 57% on the side of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Emmanuel Macron, respectively.
It still rises to second place among the most anticipated candidates by the French for the next presidential elections: 38%. We also note that in this ranking dominated by Édouard Philippe and 44% of him, the right takes the lion’s share. Bruno Le Maire, qualified with 27%, completes the podium. Only two contenders from the left break into the top ten: Jean-Luc Mélenchon who, with 26% of our compatriots wanting him to complete an extra lap, is fourth, and Bernard Cazeneuve, tenth, from the top of his 17%.
The opinion data was produced by a series of three successive surveys, initiated and carried out within the framework of a partnership between the Foundation for Political Innovation, the Center for Political Research of Po Sciences (Cevipof) and the Center for Studies and Knowledge on the citizenship. opinion. All three waves were managed by the OpinionWay Institute. Each of these three surveys was carried out with a sample of more than 3,000 people registered on the electoral lists and representative of the French population aged 18 or over. The representativeness of the sample was ensured by the quota method, taking into account the criteria of gender, age, socio-professional category, agglomeration category and region of residence.
Source: BFM TV
