Henri Rey

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.

French Socialism: An Exception in Europe?

At the end of 2006, just a few months before the French presidential election was due to be held, observers of the French Socialist Party were presented with a paradox. While a year earlier, more than a half of electors who declared themselves to be close to the party chose to ignore the advice of the majority of the party’s leadership and membership and voted against the ratification of the European Constitutional Treaty, some opinion polls suggested that a majority of French people intended to vote for Segolene Royal in the presidential election. The ambivalence of this situation indicates certain specific features of French socialism, as well as the PS’s influence as a governing party and the fragility of its political and organizational base.