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Why do they vote for Le Pen?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Nonna Mayer  and
Pascal Perrineau
Nonna Mayer
Affiliation:
Centre d'Étude de la Vie Politique Française, Paris, France
Pascal Perrineau
Affiliation:
Centre d'Étude de la Vie Politique Française, Paris, France
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Abstract

The results of a survey conducted after the second round of the 1988 presidential election stress the inadequacy of the classical models of voting behaviour, as far as the Le Pen vote is concerned. The majority of lepenist electors identify themselves neither with the National Front, nor with the extreme-Right; they show no electoral stability, no strong sociological specificity. Less educated than the average, they do not correspond to the profile of the rational voter. With the exception of a small hardcore of regular voters, politicized, extremist and dedicated to the National Front, Le Pen supporters are protest voters that come and go.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Political Research , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , July 1992 , pp. 123 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Footnotes

*

This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the ECPR Workshop on the Extreme Right-wing Parties in Europe, held at Bochum, in March 1990.

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