Flora Chanvril

Fluctuations on the Left

Throughout the nine waves of the 2012 French electoral panel, constant exchanges between the virtual electorates of various left-wing candidates were observed. When the Presidoscopie was set up at the beginning of November 2011, the balance of power between the candidates was naturally unclear. Following the successful open primary (primaires citoyennes) undertaken for the first time in France by the Parti Socialiste, Hollande was center stage. At that point, the potential of the ecology candidate, Eva Joly, and the Front de Gauche candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, was more difficult to evaluate as was the credibility of extreme left candidates. Nor was it yet possible at that stage to know how many of the potential candidates would become official candidates in the presidential election. The first panel wave was used to characterize the profiles of voters who made a choice several months before the election. These outlines were drawn from the outset, making it possible to observe how many voters would change their minds, how many would remain loyal and how many would turn to or abandon the left-wing candidates, for what reason, in what context and at what moment during the campaign.