Forecasting the Extreme Right vote in France (1984-2007)

This article identifies an issue model forecasting Extreme Right results in France between 1984 and 2007. Building upon the VP-function literature, this article looks at developing a model of electoral support for the Front National and Jean-Marie Le Pen, based upon the key political issues that are seen as motivating votes for this party: unemployment, crime and immigration. Controlling for political context through election type and opposition popularity, we find that the vote is linked to variation in macro-indicators of these issues and that consequently the Extreme Right vote in France is far from unpredictable, as some analyses have previously suggested.