Political behaviour in France: the impact of the rural–urban divide

The debate on the existence and relevance of a rural–urban divide in France has been revived in recent years. This article reviews studies showing France as a peculiar case of strong geographical divides in political behaviour, such as support for the EU or vote for the radical right. Various explanations of this divide have been advanced by French scholars to account for differences between urban, peri-urban and rural dwellers. Some of them stress the local specificities of the socio-economic composition of the territory and are reluctant to consider the rural–urban divide as a determinant of political behaviour in itself. Others stress the systematic gap between urbans and inhabitants from other territories and propose these gaps as valuable reasons for differences in political behaviour. We review several sets of explanations of this divide centered on social class, economic or cultural insecurity. We then connect the French literature with the international one and thereby identify several blind spots and areas on which scholars in France and in comparative studies could focus on in the future.