European Central: Parisian Suburbs Gives Glimpse Of Political Divide
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Macron beat Le Pen by a significant margin in the second round of the French presidential election in 2017, but next year’s election can be much closer in comparison. To understand why it is important to look at the stark contrast between Paris and the suburbs to help understand why France has such a stark political divide. French citizens living in rural and suburban France must as well be living in a different country than Parisians based on their different lifestyles and political concerns.
There have also been complaints about Paris receiving more attention and development funds from the national government along With anger over politicians not clearly thinking about how policy can impact people who do not live in urban areas. Hervé Le Bras, a geographer, has shown in studies he completed that support for Le Pen increases when the distance from a railway station increases. In the Île-de-France region where Paris is located, 3-4 million live on the semi-rural edges of the region. This helps explain why these residents are angry when they make up a significant portion of the region’s population, yet feel they are ignored in favor of Paris by politicians.
The Île-de-France Regional President, Valérie Pécresse, has attempted to distance herself from Paris and show she is for all citizens and not just Parisians. Pécresse did this by moving the regional headquarters outside of Paris. She also has shown her concern for regional residents outside of Paris by speaking out against plans to ban cars in certain areas of Paris. She realized this would make traffic and pollution worse for those living in the periphery. This has enabled her to remain fairly popular and is the leading candidate while she runs for reelection.
Interestingly enough, poverty is growing faster in Paris than in the suburban or rural areas of Île-de-France. Some of the departments in Île-de-France where the leaders of the yellow vest movement actually had poverty rates that have declined. At the same time however part of this is because of how poverty is defined in France. France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies and Eurostat defines poverty as 60 percent of the median income. This was equal to 1,020 euros in 2014. Some of the members of the yellow vest protests came from departments of Île-de-France where the median salary is higher than 60 percent but still feel they would be financially strained. This is because in reality, someone who may earn only 61 percent of the median wage would be 1037 euros a month, yet not be classified as living in poverty.
The Yellow Vest protests are another good example of the differences between urban and suburban/rural life in France. There was proposed legislation that would have increased the price of fuel. This would have had a larger impact on suburban and rural French residents who do not have access to public transportation and depend on driving their cars. Urban residents instead could have avoided the rise in fuel by taking trains or buses. The purpose of the fuel tax initially was stated to help make the French economy green, but it later became apparent the fuel tax in fact was a way to fill the budget deficit after tax cuts for the wealthy. While the movement was originally blamed on far-right politicians in France, the reality is the movement has to support from people from all parts of the political spectrum.
The growing discontent with the current politicians has helped Le Pen increase her support. While she only received 34 percent of the vote in the second round of the 2017 French Presidential election against Macron, this is still almost double what her father received in the second round of the election. Her strongest areas of support are in Northern France and Southeastern France, but for different reasons. Most of her support in Northern France comes from Le Pen has been accused of hate speech and Islamophobia in the past, but before the last election, it was clear she gained some support amongst French Muslims. Their mentality is that she is different from mainstream politicians and cannot attack the Muslims who live in the area. As a man from the Ivory Coast pointed out to Politico, the economy slows during Ramadan but immediately picks up after the month of fasting is over. In the 2019 European Union Parliament election, Le Pen’s party won the highest percentage of votes in France and won large swathes of the Île-de-France region.
While Le Pen is still considered a far-right candidate, she has softened some of her views in order to attract more voters. An example is she is no longer campaigning for France to drop the euro as its official currency. This appears to be working as there has been a noticeable increase in support for Le Pen among younger voters in Northern France. This may help the party finally win control of a regional government. In previous elections, this was impossible due to coalition-building between other parties which kept the National Rally out of power. It seems most likely that National Rally will be able to govern over Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur due to voters having ongoing concerns with immigration. This is an opportunity to see if the party’s current campaigning tactics can see success in next year’s presidential election.
The political divide in France will not be solved overnight yet it is important that French politicians do not exacerbate the problem further and avoid legislation that may impact the rural population such as a fuel tax. Otherwise, it can be expected that Le Pen and the National Rally party may continue to surge in popularity among voters. Politicians must also ensure they are focusing on improving the living standard for everyone in France, and not just Paris.
