France’s 2002 Presidential Elections: Earlier and Later Territorial Fractures

Abstract

Twenty-first April will long remain a day to remember for the French who watched in shock as election returns appeared on their TV sets: the Left had been voted out of the second round of balloting in the presidential election, the two contenders for the run-up being Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Two weeks later, the incumbent who benefited from the support of practically all political forces was re-elected with the Fifth Republic’s highest results ever (82 per cent of recorded votes). Odd as it may have seemed, this presidential election saw two dramatically different ballots which the media encapsulated with phrases taken from the geographical lexicon: ‘political earthquake’ to refer to 21 April and ‘electoral tidal wave’ for the 5 May returns.