Yann Raison du Cleuziou is a political scientist, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux - Montesquieu Research Institute.
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LE FIGARO. - According to an Ifop study for La Croix, Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour achieve a total of 40% among Catholics. What does this number mean to you? Should we see, in some Catholics, the sign of an obsession with decline?
Yann REASON DU CLEUZIOU. -
To interpret the vote of the Catholics, we must already ask ourselves which Catholics are we talking about?
Catholicism refers to extremely variable ideas, identities and forms of belonging in French society.
According to various studies, between 45 and 50% of the French population aged 18 and over declares itself to be Catholic.
At the same time, only 1.8% of Catholics go to Mass weekly.
Moreover, not all Catholic voters are Catholic voters.
In other words, not all Catholic voters vote according to their religious affiliation.
We must be careful not to overinterpret the religious dimension of the Catholic vote.
An Ifop survey published by
La Vie
in March 2022 shows that only 22% of practicing Catholic voters consider that their religious beliefs have much influence in their electoral choices.
Read alsoGuiding the choice without dictating the vote: the crest line of religious leaders
Since the publication of the work of Guy Michelat and Michel Simon (1977), we know that practicing Catholics tend to vote much more to the right than the rest of the French population.
In the first round of a presidential election under the Fifth Republic, they always voted 65 or 70% for the various right-wing currents, but the National Front never took advantage of this.
On the other hand, this resistance or this reserve is not found among non-practicing Catholics who, since the 1990s, have voted above the national averages for the National Front.
The reservations that practitioners may have had towards the RN are fading
Yann Raison du Cleuziou
As for non-practicing Catholics, their enthusiasm for the National Rally increases as this party continues to break into the French electorate.
The novelty is elsewhere: the reservations that practitioners may have had with regard to the RN are fading: 21% of them chose Marine Le Pen in the first round of the 2022 presidential election. It is therefore a clear alignment with national trends, even if they are still just below.
If only 7% of non-practitioners voted Zemmour, they are 10% among occasional practitioners and 16% among regulars. In a context of statistical collapse, Catholicism is recomposed on those who remain, the most fervent and conservative?
Éric Zemmour's score among regular practitioners, more than double the national average, shows a radicalization of this fringe of Catholicism.
Moreover, a survey for La Vie in March 2022 showed that this vote for Zemmour is based on a specifically religious dynamic: 71% of Catholic voters who vote for him do so in the name of their religious convictions.
It is very different from the Marine Le Pen vote since the RN candidate obtains 21% among regular practitioners, 26% among occasional practitioners, and 29% among non-practitioners.
The more there is a detachment from religious practice, the more the vote in favor of Marine Le Pen increases, unlike the Zemmour vote.
Éric Zemmour enabled the political structuring of a conservative Catholic right, and through his rhetoric (the “great replacement”) he helped pull it towards the extreme right.
This is due to several factors.
Political factors linked to partisan reconfiguration first.
The conservative Catholic currents, which have reasserted themselves since the Manif pour tous, dispersed after 2013 in all the right-wing parties.
In these formations, conservative Catholics (Common Sense at LR, Cercle Fraternité at RN, etc.) have been defeated and marginalized.
Éric Zemmour granted these conservative Catholic networks a central place, a notability that they did not manage to have in their previous party.
Jean-Frédéric Poisson or Laurence Trochu have never had so many
Conservative Catholics are aware of the decline of Catholicism but they feel they are the only ones anticipating the profound social effects that this decline will have.
Yann Raison du Cleuziou
This enthusiasm is also based on the positioning of Éric Zemmour and the way in which he constructs the political stakes.
It grants a cardinal place to Catholicism in the definition of the political challenges that France must take up in the coming decades.
Why ?
Because it makes Catholicism the origin of national identity.
He then makes it the matrix of the forms of government that exist in France, which attach great importance to political freedom and secularism.
Finally, he makes it the marker of majority mores.
Consequently, for Éric Zemmour, the statistical collapse of Catholicism poses fundamental problems for France.
And these problems are, according to him, aggravated by migratory flows which tend to import another form of civilization into the territory,
a form of civilization that he identifies with Islam.
This speech has been widely staged, and arouses a certain enthusiasm among Catholics who think that their religion has a civilizational dimension.
Conservative Catholics are aware of the decline of Catholicism but they feel they are the only ones anticipating the profound social effects that this decline will have.
This indifference overwhelms them.
Éric Zemmour comes to bring them recognition and confirm them in their vision of the decadence of France.
Also, 29% of Catholics voted for Emmanuel Macron, and the vote for the left has not disappeared, including among regular practitioners, as has sometimes been argued. How do you explain it?
Emmanuel Macron scores quite honorable among regularly practicing Catholics, with 25% of the vote.
This remains below national averages.
And in 2017, François Fillon obtained in the same electorate 55% of the votes in the first round.
The outgoing president therefore fails to mobilize behind him practicing Catholics who share a centre-right position or an attachment to a right-wing government that is reasonable in its conservatism.
Among practicing Catholic voters, there are always between 20 and 25% of votes going to the left.
Yann Raison du Cleuziou
Thanks to this Ifop/La Croix survey, we observe that the protest vote is now dominant, at more than 60%, among regularly practicing Catholics, whereas previously the vote for the government parties was the dominant trend.
This is a major phenomenon that requires new investigations to be fully understood.
I think there may be an effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The restriction of public and religious freedoms, the overexposure to social networks, the rise of a medical power that Catholics were already wary of because of their experience of bioethical debates, have undoubtedly favored an exasperation in the relationship to institutions.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he considerably increased his vote.
This dynamic is even stronger than that of the vote for Éric Zemmour, but is less linked to religious considerations.
Among practicing Catholic voters, there are always between 20 and 25% of votes going to the left.
This year, the LFI candidate has succeeded in taking a leadership position over all the other left-wing candidates.
Useful voting logic worked among practicing Catholics.
In addition, a number of Catholic personalities, such as the economist and Jesuit Gaël Giraud or Samuel Grzybowski, co-founder of the Popular Primary, had called for a vote for Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
In terms of turnout, 78% of Catholics cast a ballot. Is it linked to a more pronounced sense of civic-mindedness or because of the social status of Catholics, on average more advantaged than the rest of the French?
The very strong civility of Catholics is an established fact.
This is an observation that is repeated with each election.
Catholics and even more practicing Catholics have a very high level of electoral participation.
This can be explained, historically, by a strong awareness of the moral issue of participation in the life of the political community.
They have a real sense of duty, and guilt when they can't participate.
The work of Claude Dargent or Vincent Tiberj has shown that French Muslims vote massively and almost unanimously for the left.
VS
Yann Raison du Cleuziou
This phenomenon is also linked to their social integration, linked to social class or age.
We must not forget that the age pyramid of Catholicism is inverted.
Pensioners constitute strong battalions of Catholicism.
And it is known that retirees also have a high level of electoral participation.
In addition, 69% of French Muslims voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Is it a vote of membership, linked to the economic project of the candidate in particular, or a rejection of Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen, who partly campaigned on the fear of seeing France become Islamized?
The work of Claude Dargent or Vincent Tiberj has shown that French Muslims vote massively and almost unanimously for the left.
This electoral orientation is part of the long term.
This is why their choice for Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not exceptional, and it should not be over-interpreted.
Claude Dargent also explained that these French people do not vote because of their faith, but because of their social positioning and their professional environment.
The experience of precariousness and memory or the experience of migrations, for example, tie their alliance with the left more than their religious positioning.