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Explaining French elections: The presidential pivot

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French Politics Aims and scope

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Abstract

Trying to explain French elections sometimes seems like trying to see through a blinding snowstorm. But a focus on choice and outcome in presidential contests provides a clear path to their understanding. These elections, paramount in themselves, frame the lesser contests. Here we develop a theory of French presidential elections, using a French-style Michigan Model of political behavior. The theory explains these presidential results as a function of long-term forces (for example, social factors and ideological identification) and short-term forces (for example, campaign issues such as immigration, the economy and Europe). The theory is tested against election survey data from the five most recent elections (1988–2012). In general, it accounts well for outcomes in these contests. In particular, it explains why Sarkozy lost in 2012.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, 341 Schaeffer Hall, Iowa City, 52242-1498, Iowa, USA

    Michael S Lewis-Beck

  2. Département de science politique, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, C. P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, H3C 3J7, Québec, Canada

    Richard Nadeau

Authors
  1. Michael S Lewis-Beck
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Correspondence to Richard Nadeau.

Appendix

Appendix

Description of variables:

Vote

1 for respondents reporting a vote for Sarkozy and 0 for Hollande.

Age

Age of respondents rescaled on a continuous scale from (0) to (1).

Gender

Male is coded (1); female is coded (0).

Education

Eight-point scale (no diploma; elementary school diploma; professional aptitudes certificate (CAP); professional teaching certificate (BEP); technical or professional baccalauréat degree; general baccalauréat degree; baccalauréat+2; post-graduate degree), rescaled from (0) for lowest education to (1) for highest education.

Religion

Coded (1) for practicing Catholics (going to church at least once a month); (0.67) for non-practicing Catholics (rarely or never going to church); (0.33) for other religions; and (0) for no religion.

Managers

Coded (1) for farmers, merchants, craftspeople, company directors, company executives or professionals; (0) otherwise.

White-collar employees

Coded (1) for white-collar employees; (0) otherwise.

Income

Income of respondents rescaled from (0) for lowest income to (1) for highest income.

Private sector

Coded (1) for independent workers, company directors or private firm employees; (0) otherwise.

Low-risk assets

Four-point scale from (0) to (1) for owning none, one, two or three of the following assets: home or apartment, country house, or savings.

High-risk assets

Three-point scale from (0) to (1) for owning none, one or two of the following assets: stocks, rental properties.

Ideology variables

Coded from an 11-point left-right self-positioning scale, extreme left=(1) when response=0, 1; left=(1) when response=2, 3 or 4; center=(1) when response=5; right=(1) when response=6, 7 or 8; extreme right=(1) when response=9 or 10; (0) otherwise. Respondents coded ‘center’ are in the reference category.

Immigration

Opinion on the statement ‘There are too many immigrants in France’ coded 0 (totally disagree); 0.33 (somewhat disagree); 0.5 (don’t know); 0.67 (somewhat agree) and 1 (totally agree).

Europe

Opinion on the statement ‘Joining the European Union has been a very good thing for France’ coded 0 (totally disagree); 0.33 (somewhat disagree); 0.5 (don’t know); 0.67 (somewhat agree) and 1 (totally agree).

Economy(1)

Coded 1 if unemployment was identified as the most important problem in the country; 0.5 if it was identified as the second most important problem in the country; 0 otherwise.

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Lewis-Beck, M., Nadeau, R. Explaining French elections: The presidential pivot. Fr Polit 13, 25–62 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2015.4

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