French Political Space: Two, Three or Four Blocs?
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French Political Space: Two, Three or Four Blocs? Ge´rard Grunberg and Etienne Schweisguth E-mail: [email protected]
In 1997, we discussed the hypothesis that the French political space was no longer simply one-dimensional with Left–Right polarization but had become twodimensional (three poles: Left/Right/Far Right). In this article, we reaffirm, this time using data collected in 2002, the relevance of the tripartition hypothesis. We point out the ideological and social specificity of the Extreme Right electorate. It is dramatically more xenophobic, more punitive and more anti-European than the other electorates. Our results show the durability of the ideological substance of this electorate. However, the tripartition of the French electorate does not preclude the Left/Right political cleavage, which will continue to structure the workings of the political system. French Politics (2003) 1, 331–347. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200043 Keywords: electorate; France: Left/Right cleavage; extreme right; value systems
In a book published in 1997,1 we discussed the hypothesis that French political space was no longer simply one-dimensional with a left–right polarization but had become two-dimensional (the first dimension being the left–right dimension, the second a dimension with the extreme-right against the remainder of the electorate). This finding was based on a survey conducted in France following the 1995 presidential election. Our basic argument was that the Front National (FN) had become too distinct from the moderate right to consider it merely as composing the right wing of the right, that it had become an electorate with its own ideological specificity and that this phenomenon was likely to be a lasting one. The FN could be considered to be a political bloc just like the left and the moderate right. This did not mean for us that the left–right cleavage had lost its meaning. On the contrary, it continued to a large extent to organize ideological cleavages. As regards certain issues or values, it still constituted the central dividing line. However, as regards certain issues that were rising to the fore, and not only in France, such as immigration, crime fighting and European integration, the extreme right electorate could no longer be considered as simply the right wing of the right. From an ideological standpoint, this electorate seemed to differ from the leftwing and moderate right electorates. We thus defined an attitudinal dimension that we labeled universalist/antiuniversalist values, along which the main ideological cleavage was not the left/right cleavage but a cleavage separating the extreme right from the rest of the electorate. Furthermore, it was important to us to point out that,
Ge´rard Grunberg and Etienne Schweisguth French Political Space
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on the ideological dimension of economically liberal attitudes, the extreme right electorate was not to the right but to the left of the moderate right on a left–right continuum. Lastly, with respect to social variables, we noticed among Front N
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