class inversion in France

After the 2022 French election, I wrote:

The left should represent the lower-income half of the population; the right should represent the top half. When that happens, the left will generally advocate government spending and regulation. Such policies may or may not be wise, but they can be changed if they fail and prove unpopular. Meanwhile, the right will advocate less government, which (again) may or may not be desirable but will not destroy the constitutional order. After all, limited government is a self-limiting political objective.

When the class-distribution turns upside down, the left will no longer advocate impressive social reforms, because its base will be privileged. And the right will no longer favor limited government, because tax cuts don’t help the poor much. The right will instead embrace government activism in the interests of traditional national, racial or religious hierarchies. The left will frustrate change, while the right–now eager to use the government for its objectives–will become genuinely dangerous.

I wrote this as a US citizen, concerned that the Democratic Party relies on upper-income liberals while the GOP is increasingly based in the working class. But the pattern is seen internationally, which should influence how we seek to explain it.

At that time, I noted that the French electorate had turned upside-down. The right-wing far surpassed the center and the left among voters from the lowest occupational class, while the top stratum of the society favored the center or the left.

The same pattern was not clear in Britain’s recent election, where Labour performed about as well across the social spectrum (although the Tories did best among workers). However, the inversion did repeat in last week’s French election, as shown in the graphic with this post.

The data come from IPSOS. The occupational categories, in declining order of prestige, are: “cadre,” “profession intermédiaire,” “employé,” and “ouvrier.” (See more here.) The parties, in order from left to right, are the leftist New Popular Front, Macron’s “Ensemble,” the Gaullist Republicans, and the rightwing National Rally.

The inversion is most clearly illustrated by a comparison between Ensemble and the National Rally. Macron drew from the top; the right-wing party, from the bottom. But the supposedly left-wing New Popular Front performed worst among workers (ouvriers), and was the top choice of the managerial class (cadres).

IPSOS also asked about self-described class, educational attainment, and economic circumstances. The patterns are the same as shown in my graphic, but I thought that occupation would be the most reliable measure. (Reports of class identity and economic circumstances can be affected by people’s political views, rather than the reverse; but IPSOS derives its occupational categories from people’s actual jobs.)

In the USA, race is certainly relevant. The working-class Americans who have shifted right are mostly (but not exclusively) white. This may also be the case in other countries, but it is important not to assume that race and racism explain the class inversion without looking more closely at the data from the country. Unfortunately, per French law, voters cannot be asked about their race/ethnicity. However, in the IPSOS poll, just 16 percent of Catholics, versus 34 percent of members of other religions, voted for the left, and the “other” category may pick up a fair proportion of immigrants. This may suggest that some French citizens who identify as white and Catholic are voting for the right on cultural/national grounds, but that explanation is not clear from these data.

See also: UK election results by social class; social class inversion in the 2022 US elections;  class inversion as an alternative to the polarization thesissocial class in the [2022 French election; and what does the European Green surge mean?

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