French Politics, Society and Culture General Editor: Jocelyn Evans, Professor of Politics, University of Leeds, UK. France has always fascinated outside observers. Now, the country is undergoing a period of profound transformation. France is faced with a rapidly changing international and European environment and it is having to rethink some of its most basic social, political and economic orthodoxies. As elsewhere, there is pressure to conform. And yet, while France is responding in ways that are no doubt familiar to people in other European countries, it is also managing to maintain elements of its long-standing distinctiveness. Overall, it remains a place that is not exactly comme les autres. This new series examines all aspects of French politics, society and culture. In so doing it focuses on the changing nature of the French system as well as the established patterns of political, social and cultural life. Contributors to the series are encouraged to present new and innovative arguments so that the informed reader can learn and understand more about one of the most beguiling and compelling of all European countries. Titles include: Gill Allwood and Khursheed Wadia GENDER AND POLICY IN FRANCE David S. Bell and John Gaffney (editors) THE PRESIDENTS OF THE FRENCH FIFTH REPUBLIC Sylvain Brouard, Andrew M. Appleton and Amy G. Mazur (editors) THE FRENCH FIFTH REPUBLIC AT FIFTY Beyond Stereotypes June Burnham POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS AND LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS Lessons from Regional Planning in France Tony Chafer and Emmanuel Godin (editors) THE END OF THE FRENCH EXCEPTION? Decline and Revival of the French Model Jean K. Chalaby THE DE GAULLE PRESIDENCY AND THE MEDIA Statism and Public Communications Pepper D. Culpepper, Bruno Palier and Peter A. Hall (editors) CHANGING FRANCE The Politics that Markets Make Gordon D. Cumming FRENCH NGOs IN THE GLOBAL ERA France s International Development Role David Drake FRENCH INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS FROM THE DREYFUS AFFAIR TO THE OCCUPATION David Drake INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS IN POST-WAR FRANCE Jocelyn Evans and Gilles Ivaldi THE 2012 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS The Inevitable Alternation John Gaffney POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN FRANCE From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy Graeme Hayes ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST AND THE STATE IN FRANCE
David J. Howarth THE TO EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION Andrew Knapp PARTIES AND THE PARTY SYSTEM IN FRANCE A Disconnected Democracy? Michael S. Lewis-Beck (editor) THE FRENCH VOTER Before and After the 2002 Elections Michael Lewis-Beck, Richard Nadeau and Éric Bélanger FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS John Loughlin SUBNATIONAL GOVERNMENT The French Experience Mairi Maclean and Joseph Szarka FRANCE ON THE WORLD STAGE Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey and Jon Press BUSINESS ELITES AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN FRANCE AND THE UK Susan Milner and Nick Parsons (editors) REINVENTING FRANCE State and Society in the Twenty-First Century Rainbow Murray PARTIES, GENDER QUOTAS AND CANDIDATE SELECTION IN FRANCE Gino G. Raymond (editor) THE SARKOZY PRESIDENCY Breaking the Mould? Gino G. Raymond THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE FIFTH REPUBLIC A Crisis of Leadership and Ideology Paul Smith THE SENATE OF THE FIFTH FRENCH REPUBLIC Francesca Vassallo FRANCE, SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM Sarah Waters SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN FRANCE Towards a New Citizenship Reuben Y. Wong THE EUROPEANIZATION OF FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY France and the EU in East Asia French Politics, Society and Culture Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 333 80440 7 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 333 80441 4 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
The 2012 French Presidential Elections The Inevitable Alternation Jocelyn Evans Professor of Politics, University of Leeds, UK and Gilles Ivaldi Researcher in Politics, Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France
Jocelyn Evans and Gilles Ivaldi 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-01163-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-43647-7 ISBN 978-1-137-01164-0 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137011640 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
To Gayle, Cosmo and Georgia To Gina and Chiara
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Contents List of Tables, Figures and Maps Acknowledgements viii xi 1 Introduction 1 2 Knowns and Unknowns: Identifying the Critical Spaces of the 2012 Elections 12 3 Party Cooperation and Conflict: Actors Competitive Positioning 40 4 Candidate Selection Processes and Effects 65 5 Issues, Policy Debates and Candidate Valence 88 6 Campaign Events 114 7 Polls and VP-Functions: Forecasting the Elections 129 8 The Legislative Elections of June 2012 151 9 Conclusion 181 Notes 190 References 201 Index 207 vii
Tables, Figures and Maps Tables 1.1 Results of first and second rounds of presidential elections (2012) 7 2.1 Green/EELV voting trends in national elections (1974 2012) 23 2.2 UDF/MODEM voting trends in national elections (1974 2012) 24 2.3 First-round presidential vote by occupational strata in 2012 36 3.1 Effective number of first-round presidential candidates (1995 2012) 41 3.2 Average voting transfers between the first and second rounds of the 2012 presidential in pre- and post-election polls 63 4.1 Candidate selection procedures in 2012 67 4.2 Summary of EELV candidates popularities as of June 2011 68 4.3 Results of the PS primary elections of 9 and 16 October 2011 69 4.4 Final-week primary polls for the PS nomination in 2011 76 4.5 Percentages of lead on policy and valence credibility polling items in the PS primary candidates among left-wing supporters by pre-/post-arrest period 85 5.1 Socio-economic attitudes in the presidential campaign 91 5.2 Compared components of presidential credibility in Hollande and Sarkozy 98 5.3 Attitudes towards immigration and Islam by ideological affiliation 105 6.1 Importance of candidate attributes amongst supporters of run-off candidates 120 7.1 Summary of ex ante forecasts of 2012 elections 133 7.2 Final-week polls and official results 136 7.3 Polling estimates on election night (22 April 2012) 139 7.4 Average polling accuracy by polling organisation 143 7.5 Polling accuracy across electoral campaign 144 viii
List of Tables, Figures and Maps ix 7.6 Parameter estimates for full model forecasts (1981 2007) 146 7.7 Predicted and observed vote outcomes in 2012 (% of total voters registered and of votes cast) 147 7.8 Comparison of individual errors in 2007 forecast and 2012 forecasts 148 8.1 Candidates per constituency in legislative elections (1958 2012) 153 8.2 Sociological and political profile of abstainers in 2012 legislative elections (first round) 161 8.3 Results of the 2012 legislative elections 167 8.4 Actual vote counts in the first and second rounds of 1st circonscription, Charente-Maritime 177 Figures 2.1 INSEE quarterly unemployment rate (2003 2012) 14 2.2 Comparative pre-election presidential popularities (1981 2012) 17 2.3 Sarkozy s presidential popularity (2007 2012) 18 2.4 Favourable popularity ratings for the PS in pre-election years 19 2.5 Trends in public perceptions of economic prosperity in France (1999 2011) 28 2.6 Public opinion trust of the Left and the Right (2009 2011) 30 2.7 Abstention in presidential and legislative elections in France (1958 2012) 31 2.8 Polarisation as the total size of the radical vote in presidential elections (1974 2012) 34 3.1 Presidential candidates in France (1965 2012) 51 3.2 First-round presidential voting intentions for Hollande, Mélenchon and the Left: November 2011 April 2012 56 5.1 Salience of immigration and insecurity issues before and after the Toulouse shootings 91 5.2 Salience of environmental issues before and after the Fukushima nuclear plant accident 111 6.1 Real GDP growth rate (2003 2012) 118 7.1 Polling accuracy across time (unweighted) 141 7.2 Polling accuracy across time (weighted) 142 8.1 Legislative turnout in post-war France 160 8.2 Relationship between Sarkozy first-round vote and first-round legislative abstention by department 163
x List of Tables, Figures and Maps 8.3 Theoretical electoral threshold for legislative run-offs (1958 2012) 164 8.4 Effective number of parliamentary parties in the French National Assembly and Senate (1958 2012) 165 8.5 Number of communist deputies (1958 2012) 169 9.1 Confidence ratings in François Hollande as President and Jean-Marc Ayrault as Prime Minister 183 Maps 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 Change between 2007 and 2012 first-round vote in the legislative elections for the PS, UMP and FN by department 171
Acknowledgements This book grew from an informal project we began to cover the 2012 presidential race, partly as academics interested in French politics and partly as academics wanting to take part in a more public-facing commentary on the lead-up, campaign and outcomes to the elections. Much of the material in the book started life, and in very different shape, on our election blog, 500signatures.net. We are very grateful to those who liked the blog, and even more to those who Liked it, and fed back on it. From the blog, a number of individuals and organisations asked us to comment further for their own outlets. We are very grateful to Policy Network, Renewal, Nottingham University s Ballot and Bullets blog and EUROPP at LSE for the opportunity to expand on our ideas under their banners. Given our respective interests in the extreme right portion of the election, and in particular forecasting it, we should acknowledge the 57 anonymised political scientists who took part in our experimental survey and answered the question, What is your own estimate, today, of Marine Le Pen s score in the first round of the presidential election in April 2012? With a mean of 17.06 per cent, collective guesstimating outperformed many polls (even if, somewhat worryingly, those that thought about the answer longer than a day did worse than those who didn t...). We do not use this experiment in the text, but it at least gave us some encouragement that our own forecast, which we do use, was realistic even when some polls suggested it wasn t. We are grateful to Prof. Kai Arzheimer for the completeness of his replication dataverse, which allowed one of us to remember and thereby replicate their legislative forecast model in Chapter 7. Without it, we may have been none the wiser how multiparty forecasts performed in the France of 2012. We are also grateful to the support and patience of Liz Holwell, Amber Stone-Galilee and Andrew Baird, all at Palgrave, in the delivery and production of the manuscript, and publication of the book. Finally, we are grateful to our respective (and in one case erstwhile) institutions, the University of Salford, UK, and Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France, for providing the infrastructure and time to complete the book. xi