Political Change and Cleavage Voting in France. Class, Religion, Political Appeals and Voter Alignments (1962-2007)
Résumé
This chapter discusses the long-term trends in class and religious voting in France since the birth of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Whereas previous research focused on shorter periods of time and indicated stability, it reveals striking patterns of convergence regarding both class and religious alignments since the end of the 1970s. These patterns are associated with large changes in the issues shaping party competition, i.e. the weakening of socio-economic and religious issues during the 1970s and the rise of new cultural issues (immigration, law and order) in the 1980s. In the end, this framework allows us to explain why the right-wing parties have been able to attract growing support within the working-class.