LePen’s Party Gaining More Support From The French Military
According to research conducted by IFop for the Jean Jaurès Foundation, the French military is now gravitating towards Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party.
The study was made in polling stations in small garrison towns and barracks.
The group observed communes “where the weight of the military and their family counts significantly, that is to say, places where the numbers are relatively large but where the communal population is relatively limited”.
Among the municipalities where the army resides, the RN has garnered 50.4 % of the votes in the last European elections in Mailly-le-Camp, 17 points more than than in the department of the Aube.
The city voted 34.1% RN in the first round of presidential elections in 2012, 44.7% in the European elections in 2014, 53.7% in the first round of regional elections in 2015, and 41.4% in the 2017 presidential election.
In Suippes too, the RN gained 45.5 % of voters, about 15 points above the average recorded in the Marne.
“Since 2017, we have witnessed a progressive uprising of the right-wing electorate by the FN / RN, especially with the unwinding of the party Republicans to European,” according to the authors, Jerome Fourquet, director of the Opinion Department of the Ifop Institute, and Sylvain Manternach, geographer.
The research also showed that there has been a similar right-wing tropism in the Air Force cities and on military bases abroad.
In Ventiseri, for example, the RN obtained 43.6% of the votes in the European elections against 26.5% on average in the rest of Upper Corsica. In Abu Dhabi, Le Pen received 12.6% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election in 2017.
Barracks of mobile gendarmes and guards republicans have been observed to lean towards Le Pen too.
In Hyères, located in southern France, the difference between the gendarme vote for the National Rally and the city average was above 20%. In Toulouse and Dijon, the difference was 17.4% and 12.5% respectively in Rennes.
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