Le vote gaucho-lepéniste. Le masque extrême d'une dynamique normale

The left-wing vote for le pen. the extreme mask of a normal dynamic. This article seeks to provide an explanatory model for the electoral phenomenon of gaucho-lepénisme. Arguing that existing explanations tend to ascribe primacy to one social or attitudinal facet of the process, such as xenophobia, social marginalisation or political dissatisfaction, this model presents evidence for all three aspects being necessary to producing left-wing defection to the Extreme Right. In particular, without an attitudinal array containing elements consonant with the party or its candidate's political supply, neither the « modernization loser » nor the « protest » explanations of defection is sufficient. However, the possible existence of heterogeneous belief sys-tems containing both Left-wing and Right-wing elements means that such changes in voting behaviour can occur solely on the basis of fluid hierarchies of belief clusters, rather through radical change in beliefs. Defection is thus to be seen as less exacer-bated a change than previous analyses have suggested.