If, at the end of the presidential election, the detail of the vote by municipality draws a contrasting map of France between a re-elected Emmanuel Macron (58.5% of the vote) and a Marine Le Pen stronger than ever (41.5%), some cities and Villages ignored voting intent polls and voted almost exclusively for the leader of the National Assembly. Increasingly strong in the East, North and around the Mediterranean, it has often conquered the most popular and rural areas, including, to everyone’s surprise, the overseas territories.
Over-representation of overseas territories
In the ranking of the 10 cities with more than 5,000 voters in which Marine Le Pen achieved the best result in the second ballot, the overseas territories, surprised by this election, appear over-represented. In fact, Marine Le Pen received almost 60% of the votes in Réunion, almost 61% in Martinique and Guyana and even almost 70% in Guadeloupe. Two to three times more than five years ago when it was defeated.
The city of Capesterre-Belle-Eau on Guadeloupe is at the top of the ranking with 78.85% of the votes cast in favor of Marine Le Pen. Six other communes of Guadeloupe (Petit-Canal, Port-Louis, Pointe-Noire, Sainte-Rose, Les Abymes and Lamentin) take their place in our ranking. The cities of Saint-Philippe (76.36%) and La Plaine-des-Palmistes (73.73%) follow Reunion Island in fifth and tenth place, followed by Mayotte and the municipality of Mtsamboro (74.05%). the ninth place.
The intensity of social problems (purchasing power, wages, housing) in these areas, which are poorer than the French average, the massive opposition to the government’s health policy and past scandals such as that of chlordecone (this pesticide that affects more than 90% of the adult population in Guadeloupe and Martinique) are all reasons that can explain this open opposition to Emmanuel Macron.
In mainland France, one vote focused on rural communities
If we focus our ranking on metropolitan areas with more than 5,000 voters, the result is less surprising. This time it’s the rural towns of the North, countries historically propitious for the National Rally, that appear to be over-represented.
The town of Mazingarbe in the Pas-de-Calais thus tops the list with 72.98% of the votes cast in favor of Marine Le Pen. Seven other communes, from Divion (72.91%) to Bruay-la-Buissière (69 .27%), above Rouvroy (71.07%) and Wingles (70.52%), lie in the department of Pas-de-Calais, while a town in the department of Nord, Aniche, rose with 70.14% of the votes for the far-right candidate to eighth place. The only geographical exception: the town of Biguglia in Haute-Corse, which voted 71.47% for the RN.
This ranking shows how far the National Rally has come nationally since 2017. Five years ago, Marine Le Pen won only two departments, Aisne and Pas-de-Calais. This time it won three regions, Corsica (58.08%), Hauts-de-France (52.13%), the Paca region (50.48%) but also the overseas territories sea.
It also scores better than its national score in several other regions: Grand Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Occitanie, and surprisingly Normandy, Centre-Val-de-Loire and Nouvelle-Aquitaine.