Is France leaning to the right or the left? The question of the country’s ideological orientation has never been more crucial and debated, as Emmanuel Macron desperately seeks a viable majority in Parliament. For many, it is obvious: as French society ages, it is becoming increasingly conservative. A shift to the right that would fuel the rise of the National Rally. All the merit of the essay The French Rightward Shift: Myth and Reality is to question, with figures, this cliché.
Its author, Vincent Tiberj, is a professor of political sociology at Sciences Po Bordeaux and a researcher at the Emile Durkheim Center. He points out that beyond surveys, longitudinal indices, which are much more reliable over the long term, provide another image of our country. The French say they are increasingly tolerant when it comes to gender, sexual minorities, and individual freedoms. In 1981, for example, only 29% of respondents believed that “homosexuality is an acceptable way to live one’s sexuality.” Since the beginning of the 21st century, levels of acceptance of homosexuality have exceeded 80%, or even 90%. The same is true for diversity. In 1992, 44% of respondents considered that immigrants are a source of cultural enrichment; in 2022, this figure was 76%. While anti-Semitic acts may experience worrying spikes, such as after October 7, 2023, anti-Semitism is declining as an opinion. Stereotypes associating Jews with power or money have declined in the 2010s. Tolerance towards French Muslims is also increasing, even if the riots in the suburbs in 2005 may have marked a temporary decline.
According to Vincent Tiberj, this trend towards cultural openness is driven by generational renewal and rising levels of education. On the other hand, on a socio-economic level, the French are more fluctuating between liberalism and the demand for a more social state. Executives and the self-employed remain mostly in favour of freedom of enterprise, while workers and employees demand protection and redistribution. But, regularly, we see a “thermostatic” phenomenon: when the right is in power, social demands tend to rise, while when the left governs they fall.
Rightward shift “from above”
For the sociologist, these data do not in any case allow us to conclude that there has been a “rightward shift from below”. On the other hand, there has been a rightward shift “from above”, through the media discourse (symbolized by a channel like CNews) and the political offer, of which the evolution of Emmanuel Macron is representative. But how can we explain the big gap between the state of opinion and the electoral results, with a left that only collects, roughly, a third of the votes? Vincent Tiberj puts forward a “great resignation” of French citizens, marked by the increase in abstentionists, who reject the vote, as well as that of the “non-aligned” (voters placing themselves in the center or refusing to position themselves on the left-right axis), who no longer recognize themselves in the political offer. The phenomenon reinforces the electoral weight of the boomers as socially more privileged groups, more loyal at the ballot box and who lean more to the right on average.
Vincent Tiberj also addresses other social developments that are less favorable to the political left. Individualism erodes the feeling of identification and solidarity with a social class. Furthermore, the refusal of globalization and opposition to immigration are no longer done solely in the name of cultural values, but also of economic logic, immigrants being able to be perceived by supporters of redistribution as the main beneficiaries of the welfare state.
But, even if it is based on numerous figures, the essay itself suffers from obvious ideological biases. One could respond to the author that the shift to the right of intellectuals or the media is in reality only a rebalancing, whereas the cultural left has long enjoyed hegemony, particularly in the public media. One also smiles when reading that “budgetary orthodoxy” would have prevailed on the media or political levels, while deficits continue to widen and even a government presented by its detractors as “neoliberal” has long used the “whatever it takes” approach. The book also does not address in depth the issue of insecurity, a major concern particularly among the working classes. While homicides have fallen sharply over the past thirty years, crime indicators have recently risen. The debate over which side the French are leaning towards therefore remains open, and will last at least until the country regains a stable majority. But we close this book with one certainty: university sociologists seem to be well immunized against any phenomenon of rightward shift…
The French Rightward Shift. Myth and Reality, by Vincent Tiberj. PUF, 144 p., €15.
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