Hervé Le Bras is a historian, demographer, director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Emeritus Researcher at the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED). In an interview at Worldhe observes that “if France is doing quite well, compared to what is happening around us”, the feeling of living in a downgraded country wins over its inhabitants.
What has changed in the French political and social landscape over the past five years?
If we look at the vote in favor of Emmanuel Macron in 2022 compared to that of 2017, it is certain that he has righted himself. The president recovered the elderly clientele, which he took from Valérie Pécresse. Retirement at age 65, which he put at the center of his campaign, is a symbol of this. Even if it means contradicting the points retirement he defended during his first five-year term, but he is not to a contradiction.
If he won on the right, Emmanuel Macron lost in the traditional bastions of the left. Finally, its big scores are concentrated in the big cities, of course, but also in a Great West which was very right, which goes from the Channel to the south of the Vendée. However, what is interesting to note, during the mobilizations against the pension reform, is that the demonstrations were very important throughout this western part. This is particularly clear for the big demonstration of March 17.
What does this translate?
I think what is playing out, and we see it particularly in this whole of the Great West, is a loss of confidence from centre-right, MoDem-style voters, who have a social fiber and are disconcerted by the how this pension business has been handled. However, in 2017, when we combined commune by commune the vote for François Bayrou in 2012 and half of that for François Hollande, we obtained the Macron vote.
There is a map that intersects with these electoral data, it is that of the farmers in 1968, a quarter of a century earlier, and I do not think it is a coincidence. Indeed, in these regions, there has been a social rise: those whose parents and grandparents were poor peasants are now middle managers, technical workers. They therefore have a positive view of society. This is not the case in the regions of the North-East, which perceive the feeling of downgrading more strongly.
What will this electorate who had favored Macron do? Will it return to the right, as it had long been the case before moving to the left? But, in any case, it’s a non-Mélenchonian left.
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