We’ll always have Paris? Spatial inequalities and the rise of political discontent in the metropolitan region of Paris

Abstract

In recent decades, developed economies have experienced a strong concentration of economic activity around their main metropolises, generating economic and social fractures between these prosperous areas and the rest of the country. Several contributions in the literature on the ‘geography of discontent’ noted how the concentration of growth and prosperity in large metropolitan areas explains the rise of anti-system, anti-European political options. This paper focuses on the case of Paris and its surrounding region, Île-de-France, using the results of the last French presidential election in April 2022. Two candidates, one who embodied the Europeanist and pro-establishment option (Macron) and the populist option (Le Pen), faced each other in the second round of the election. This situation, combined with the high level of spatial disaggregation of socioeconomic information within the French statistical system, makes it possible to study the relationship between spatial inequalities and political discontent at the local level and analyse intra-metropolitan patterns. Inequalities at this scale explain a large part of the anti-establishment vote: the most prosperous areas tend to vote for the pro-establishment option, whereas populism becomes strong in the less favoured areas. Stagnating areas also have a greater propensity to support populist political parties.