The Stability of French Political Space, 1988–2002

Abstract

This paper extends our analysis of French political space (2003), and the relationship between cleavages, values and party choice, to the 2002 Presidential elections. It re-tests both Grunberg and Schweisguth's tripartition hypothesis against our hypothesis of continued bipartition in the context of an election where the Extreme Right candidate played a highly significant role in both rounds and could consequently be expected to stand clearly apart from the mainstream Left and Right as a separate bloc. While we find that there are clear distinctions between the Moderate and Extreme Right in some respects, the separation appears to be a product of the institutional framework which maintains this division artificially: the abiding impression of French political space over 14 years is one of stability.