Anya Durovich, political science researcher. “RN implements the front of feminism”

At 21:00 on Sunday evening, the announcement came like a hammer. Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly after the crushing failure of the presidential majority in the European elections and the overwhelming victory of the National Rally (RN). A decision made in the utmost secrecy that surprises everyone, including the far right.

The date is accepted. Therefore, the French will return to the polls on June 30 and July 7 to elect a new parliament. A few weeks before this highly charged election, Anya Durovic, a postdoctoral researcher at CNRS and the University of Paris-Saclay, analyzes women’s connection to voting and looks back at the recent membership of some of them in the RN. 32% of women who voted on Sunday put Jordan Bardella’s ballot in the ballot box.

Madame Figaro .- What do women have to do with voting?
Anya Durovich: What I observed in my thesis work, and what I observe today in INSEE’s voter turnout surveys, is that the oldest women, those disenfranchised by law, vote less on average than men of their generation. We see a “scar” effect. For a long time, politics was not for women. they were even excluded. That is why they have difficulty returning to this sphere and have a weak sense of political competence. On the other hand, in younger generations, women go to the polls more than men in very important elections such as presidential and legislative elections. Although these younger generations vote less on average than older generations, gender disparities in participation rates change in some types of elections.

Were the young women there at the European elections?
European elections are generally less important to the national context, and to people who are not very political, these elections seem like something distant. It feels like the outcome will affect them less and have less impact on their lives. In France and elsewhere, we see a lower voter turnout for women than for men in these types of elections. This was further confirmed during the 2024 European elections, according to Ifop-Fiducial Le Figaro/LCI/Sud Radio reported on Monday that 70% of men aged 65 and over voted pro-European, compared to 56% of women in the same age group. 38% of women under 35 have traveled, compared to 44% of young men. Therefore, we can see that the younger generations vote less on average than their elders, but they do so in a slightly more equal way from a gender perspective.

How to explain it?
Although women are far more likely to participate in presidential elections, they have a lower interest in politics than men on average across all generations. Perhaps because they are less concerned about the political proposal. But also because they don’t always feel justified in having political opinions or being sufficiently informed. And it is clear that this feeling of incompetence greatly affects participation and interest in politics. This is especially noticeable in the case of the European elections. We know that they attract more political people, and women less than men, which may explain the fact that they vote less than their male counterparts.

Does this lack of interest in politics among women correlate with women’s underrepresentation in politics?
Descriptive representation, that is, the fact that there are more or less women in politics, certainly has an effect, but it is not as massive as we think.

Based on this observation, do most of them abstain?
Everything depends on the type of elections and the sensitive topics covered during the pre-election campaign. For example, in 2023, when the last national elections held in Poland were based on the right to abortion, women, especially the youngest, took part in a massive turnout.

In the 1940s and 1950s, when women voted, they did so more conservatively than men. Then one thing led to another, they systematically voted more left than men. Is that the case today?
According to the work of French political scientist Jeanine Mossouze-Lavoux, women were initially heavily influenced by the religious education they received and therefore actually held more conservative opinions than men. Then came the time of emancipation and above all their entry into the labor market. And as their educational attainment has continued to rise, we see a phenomenon where women “over-vote” for left-wing parties in some Western democracies. That being said, it was only seen briefly in France in the late 1980s and early 1990s, however we were seeing this trend in Germany where 18-24 year olds and 24 year old women. 35-year-olds vote more to the left than men of their generation. In France it is less. Except for the 2022 presidential election, where young women sided with Jean-Luc Mélenchon more than young men. This phenomenon was somewhat repeated among the Europeans on Sunday. According to Ifop, there is a 5-point difference between women and men under 35 for Manon Aubry, even if it is important to tone down the younger men who voted more for Raphael Glucksmann (14% of men under 35 vs. 8% of: women under 35). But if we are to believe the first polls of the European elections, there is no clear trend in terms of “gender gaps” in these elections. This can be explained by the fact that women and especially young people participated less. If ever the pre-election campaign for legislative elections mobilized more women and especially the youngest, this trend could probably reverse.

What about the relationship between women voters and the far right?
The work of political science researcher Nonna Mayer (expert, in particular, on the far right, racism and anti-Semitism, Editor’s note), show that France has long provided a perfect example of what has been called the “radical right gender divide,” meaning that women show lower support for far-right parties. How can we explain this reluctance? There are a number of reasons. first, that women used to be less employed than men and therefore less affected by globalization. Further, due to the often very sexist, virilist and violent speeches of the male leaders of the radical right parties and the low number of women in the representatives/elected officials of these parties. Among older women, their pronounced religiosity has also alienated them from these parties, as the churches have often opposed them in the past. Finally, because women are generally more sensitive to what is not approved by society and what is perceived as extreme and criticized.

But now the situation has changed…
Indeed, far-right parties such as the RN are much less stigmatized, and this is largely due to Marine Le Pen’s strategy of seeking to retain the loyalty of female voters by “normalizing” the party and giving it a smoother, less extremist look. and lived less than his father. Which, by the way, isn’t that hard. Result: Since 2012, we have been amazed to see that the RN has managed to close this gender gap within its electorate, including in the recent European elections.

In interview given to world , in April you shared the following analysis. “The level of support in different age categories of women has tripled, even quadrupled, and even doubled among older women who once feared FN.” How to explain that Marine Le Pen was able to maintain the loyalty of the female electorate, even though the programs of the extreme right are a threat to women’s rights?
Marine Le Pen, who has already described herself as a “quasi-feminist”, is trying to woo women by talking about the difficulties she could face as a modern woman, mother. And her party is putting on a facade of feminism today by voting to include abortion in the Constitution, demanding a law to cover endometriosis. However, the RN shows a completely different face in the European Parliament. The list is very long, let me give two examples: in 2024, its elected representatives abstained or were absent during the vote to include the right to abortion in the European Charter; In 2023, the Republic of Armenia refrains from adopting the Istanbul Convention “On the prevention and combating of violence against women and domestic violence”. All this shows that this is really a facade of feminism and an electoral strategy. That said, it works with voters. As for Jordan Bardella, his achievement was to make RN more attractive to young people. Even if Marine Le Pen had already succeeded to some extent in 2017 and 2022.

And if we look at women’s interest in other parties, namely Renaissance, Socialist Party (PS), Ecolos, Republicans (LR) or La France Insoumise (LFI), what is the situation?
You have to be very careful because trends change and change. However, we note that women, especially the youngest, are on average more sensitive to gender equality and environmental issues than men, and therefore more favorable to greater equality between women and men and policy measures against climate deregulation. This may explain why women under 35 turned slightly more towards the LFI and the Greens during the last European elections.

*This number does not account for invalid or blank votes, only votes cast.