Yes they can: an experimental approach of diversity MP eligibility in

Sylvain BROUARD, Sciences Po Bordeaux, SPIRIT

Vincent TIBERJ, Sciences Po Paris, CEE

“If they failed, that’s because they do not have the skills for these elections”1. This is how Patrick Ollier, former president of the National Assembly explain the failure of MP diversity candidates to get elected in 2007. Leaving aside the validity of the argument for the moment, this is a very good example of the traditional wisdom regarding political representation in the republican France in general and the attitude toward minority candidates in particular.

Election is a two-faces democratic Janus (Manin,1995). On the one hand election is a way to represent the people in its heterogeneity. The elected official has therefore to be representative to a certain extent of her voters. On the other hand, election is also a distinction and a selection process. Hence voters assess the qualities and intrinsic superiority of the candidate they decide to put in office. Definitely, this second face prevails in Ollier’s conception. And he is definitely not the only one to share it. Neither Parties nor voters could be blamed for the marginal number of Diversity MPs, he argues, the cause lies in the candidates themselves. Clearly Ollier refers to a meritocratic conception of election where candidates have the major role to play in their electoral fate, which is incidentally also a self-justification of his own success. Nothing would depend on the constituency and its electoral equilibrium or on the assignment to a particular constituency (for which French parties are still responsible. Everything would lie in the capacities and skills of candidates to convince voters.

What begins to be troublesome regarding the French case, is the simple sociodemographic comparison of French MPS vis-à-vis others western democracies. According to various estimations, in 2007 the diversity MPs numbers evolves between 1 and 3 out of 555 metropolitan deputies (i.e. 0.18% to 0.58%) and would be 4 out of 305 metropolitan senators (1.31%). Taking the lower chamber as a reference, France would be in the situation of Italy (0.32% of diversity MPs), already behind Germany (1.14%) and United Kingdom (2.32%) and far behind Netherlands (8%) and the United States (15.45%)2. In terms of history of immigration and of models of integration (and particularly access to citizenships), France proposes a quite open Political Opportunity Structure: North-African migrants began to settle in the 30’s; generally second generations enjoy the French citizenship and therefore can enter in the political career just like any other citizen. Nevertheless France remains behind Italy, a very recent country of immigration, Germany, a jus sanguinis country, and definitely fails to compete with the Netherlands and the United Kingdom who share most of its characteristics.

This lack of diversity representation is a part of a larger phenomenon: definitely the French politicians are selected from a particularly narrow part of the French society. The average deputy in

1 Quoted in Eric Keslassy 2009, p. 40. 2 Computations and sources are the following Keslassy, 2009, Escafé-Dubet and Simon, 2009, Michon, Tillie and Heelsum, 2007, 2002 is a male (87.5%), white, aged (58 years old on average), with a university education3 (82% vs. 17.5% in the general population) and, for one case out of two, belongs to the upper class (Sineau, Tiberj, 2007). In 2007, the proportion of female deputies has slightly increased (18.5%) but France remains 19th out of 25 EU member-states for women’s political representation in parliament. Regarding age, the 2007 National Assembly is still getting old. In 2010, the proportion of deputies aged 60 or more will be 9 times the one of deputies aged 40 or less. Let’s compare with the United Kingdom where this ratio will be 3, Italy (2.63) or Germany (0.68) (Chauvel, 2007). Definitely the French political elites are conservative in terms of gender, age, education, social class and ethnic diversity. Incidentally, it is difficult to assess that, together, women, young, non-upper-class and ethnic minorities lack the competences and skills for being elected.

The reasons behind this French exception are beyond the scope of this chapter, but definitely weight on the political representation of ethnic diversity. If women, even backed by the parity law which force parties to endorse at least 50% of female candidates, are still underrepresented in parliament, the situation of ethnic diversity cannot be better, particularly since, in the republican framework, women equal representation has being accepted with difficulties (see Lepinard,2006 and 2007). Actually, representation of ethnic minority is even less acknowledged as a normative goal, backed by an associational network definitely less accepted and recognized than the women’s movement (Mazur, 1995) and historically more recent4.

In a nutshell, leaving aside institutional factors (such as electoral rules, foreigners right to vote, etc…) three main actors can be together responsible for the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities (or any other social underrepresentation): parties and its role in candidate selection and geographical assignment, voters and her potential biases regarding candidates and candidates themselves in terms of personal qualities, policy platforms and strategies. Kittilson and Tate (2005) when they try to explain success and failure of ethnic political representation identify three models: one focusing on social change (Katz and Mair 1994), one based on partisan elites (Aldrich, 1995) and theirs, the political opportunity structure model, which combines intra-parties lobbying, change in the institutional settings and ideological climate. They argue, change of attitudes in the society is not enough for favoring ethnic representation. They also demonstrate that alone a partisan elite-led focus on ethnic representation is definitely not enough. Success is a combination between societal change, ethnic intra-parties organizations and therefore change in the partisan elite-level.

This combination of factors is definitely important but the key variable for gathering all these favorable conditions lies in the voters attitudes whether true –i.e. voters in themselves disregard ethnic candidates- or supposed –partisan leaders presuming they would prefer a certain type of candidates, enjoying a traditional social profile. Our main assumption is that Parties whether intentionally or not, misperceive voters preferences vis-à-vis ethnic representatives. Parties would assume that electorate is not ready to choose such a candidate, and justify thereof their status quo policy on this matter.

3 14% of them are Sciences Po alumni when the official number of alumni reachs barely 53 000 individuals (i.e. 0.08% of the French population) 4 According to Geisser and Soum (Geisser and Soum, 2008), during a long time leftist parties were more concerned by the representation of social class rather than ethnic diversity. Authors place the first major ethnic engagement in electoral politics in 1989, a quite late date when compared with the century old working class struggle or the suffragettes and feminist movements. Actually evidences of such a preference are mixed in traditional opinion polls. Overall the French electorate voice the lack of responsiveness of the traditional political class. Regularly since the mid- 90’s, between 70% and 80% of the French interviewees consider that politicians care hardly or not at all about what people like them thinks (Bréchon, 2004). This distrust is strongly linked with the inefficiency regarding unemployment issue, the depolarization of the French political divide (Martin, 2000) and even with the rise of the critiical postmaterialist citizens (Norris, 1999). But it may also connect with the protest against social characteristics of the political elites: in october 2005, 89% of interviewees wish for an improvement of women representation in parliament, and 84% share the same position vis-à-vis the young. They were even still a majority (55%) when visible minorities’ parliament representation was at stake5. Clearly visible minorities are not as consensual as women and young but still are not as rejected as supposed.

Nevertheless it seems that an important share of the French voters would have issues regarding such candidates. This is confirmed by other polls. TNS-SOFRES found out in march 2007 that 30% of French would refuse to vote for a candidate of Muslim culture or denomination whereas “only” 18% would do so for a gay candidate or a candidate of foreign origin. Such a penalty even, marginal, could actually cost the election for a major party particularly in the French two-round majority system where a small national score differences between the left and the right can be translated in a important MP seats differential (Dolez and Laurent, 2005). On the other hand, 85% of CSA interviewees in 2008 said they would be ready to vote for “a candidate belonging to a visible minority” but in the same time only 40% think the French as a whole could do the same. It seems confirming that minority candidates could suffer from an ethnic penalty. The last figures give an indirect sense of an ideological climate where ethnic prejudices may still be widespread in the public.

All these results could back the behavior of mainstream political parties. After all, their (intrinsic or instrumental) goal is to maximize votes and not to propose an exact mirror of society. But is this so straightforward? All these survey questions are susceptible of various biases which could distort the real electorate position positively (exaggeration of prejudices) or negatively. The halo effect is a first one: asking about diversity after having tested women and young can deform positively the percentages of individuals agreeing about more ethnic representation just because of questionnaire order. Social desirability is another. General order question such as increasing ethnic political representation can create some kind of “lipstick” agreement rather than measuring a real commitment to this goal, particularly since this goal has strong connections with racism and prejudices which often is underestimated through opinion polls. For assessing the public state of mind regarding minority political representation, which is the main objective of this paper, such survey biases have to be canceled, so the use of experimental design we would now present. data and experimental deisgn

In this chapter we will use data from the CEVIPOF survey “Rapport au politique des Français issus de l’immigration – The political implications of the French of immigrant origin” (RAPFI).6 The field

5 CSA poll, october 2005, n=988 6 This survey was granted with the financial support of the Service d’Information du Gouvernement (SIG – French Government Information Service), the Centre d’Etudes et de Prospectives du Ministère de l’Intérieur (Study and Forecast Centre of the French Home Office), the Fonds d’Action et de Soutien pour l’Intégration et la Lutte contre les Discrimination (FASILD – Action and Support Funds for Integration and Fight against Discriminations) and the Jean Jaurès Foundation. institute TNS-SOFRES conducted the poll, using the questionnaire drawn up by the CEVIPOF research team, between April 8th and May 7th 2005, with a representative sample – called RAPFI – of 1,003 French citizens who emigrated from Africa and Turkey aged 18 year and older. A “mirror” survey was also conducted, between April 13th and April 21st 2005, with a representative sample of the French electorate– called the “control sample” or “mirror sample” – of 1,006 18-year and older individuals. Both consisted of a phone interview which lasted 35 minutes on average. In both cases, a base of surveys representative of the two types of households was set up using the quota method (respectively INSEE EHF survey7 and INSEE Employment survey). Among this base, phone numbers were randomly selected. With the exception of a few necessary adaptations, the questionnaires used in both surveys were very similar, in wording as well as in the order of the questions. The methodology used ensures a reliable and systematic comparison of the two samples.

The RAPFI survey is unique in the field of minority studies in France. First, the population of interest was defined to avoid bias. Previous surveys defined the population by selecting only individuals of the Islamic faith or by their birthplace. Both these criteria are biased: what about the French of immigrant origin who are atheist or practice another religion? What about the pieds-noirs of who do not self identify as immigrants? Our study includes individuals of French citizenship having at least one parent or grandparent who held or still holds the nationality of one of the following countries: Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, or any other country of Africa. We therefore include in our sample naturalized immigrants, first and second generation born in France, whether of mixed heritage or not. Second, by using the EHF survey and the CATI procedure, this survey is the first to be controlled by quotas thus correcting the methodological errors of previous polls (see Kaltenbach, Tribalat, 2002). Most previous polls were based on face-to-face interviews and are biased since they choose densely populated urban areas to minimize the cost of the polls. These areas have disproportionately high numbers of foreigners. Our method, though more labor intensive, remedies this bias: 28,000 individuals were interviewed to make up a representative sample of 1,003 respondents. Lastly, the RAPFI survey is the first survey which explores specific dimensions such as integration, perception of racism and relationships toward Islam, but also general dimensions including politics, values systems and policies preferences, whereas the French of immigrant origin were only surveyed on matters such as Islam or secularization (for a detailed presentation of the methodology and results, see Brouard and Tiberj, 2005).

The imaginary candidate experiment

Random variable 1: UMP / PS Random variable 2: his work as M.D. / in the community services Random variable 3: Bilal Yassine / Guillaume Lachaise

Let’s now talk about a candidate (random variable 1 ) in a local election. Never elected before, he put a lot of effort in (random variable 2). (Random variable 3) wants to be elected to make things change. He wants also the people to be heard.

Is this candidate able enough to understand your problems?

7 For more information about this survey, see Tribalat, 2004. Rather yes / Rather no / DK

If he was candidate in your constituency, would you vote for him? Rather Yes / Rather no / DK

In this survey we have designed a particular experiment “the imaginary candidate” which was posed two both samples in the survey. Experimental design presents the major advantage to neutralize the halo and social desirability effect mentioned before. Since interviewees will be confront to one and only one experimental case they are not in the position to guess neither which is the treatment or the control and nor which are the objectives behind this question. Furthermore, we provide several information to the interviewee, about its status as political newcomer, his partisan endorsement (the main rightwing party UMP or the main leftwing party PS), part of his motivations (or general platform), his main occupation –or the occupation he chooses to present- and, last but not least, its ethnicity assessed by his surname and name, Guillaume Lachaise “looking” very French whereas Bilal Yassine clearly refers to a minority candidate8). The respondents were presented with a set of “plausible” reasons on which they could rely for rejecting the candidate, ethnicity and prejudices being one among several other more accepted justifications. To minimize further the social desirability effect, two question were asked, the first being a general assessment of the candidate responsiveness, therefore not very engaging, the second being on a potential vote. For those who evaluate Bilal if they want to express their prejudice they have definitely the opportunities to hide it under several “good reasons”.

This experiment was inspired by King and Matland (2003) who have developed a similar experimental design to test the schemes associated with female candidate regarding their political desirability. They suppose that female candidates are associated in the public mind with a particular sets of assumptions which erode the traditional political model of voting such as party Identification. Our suppositions are close. The concept of Eligibility (Costa, Kerrouche, 2007) is particularly useful here: it encompasses the various symbolic and social resources at the candidate’s disposal (social status, personal networks, political experience). Definitely, when compared to the “traditional candidate” minority politicians can be disregarded for various reasons: some can suffer from a low social status when confronted with the traditional notable (social prestige handicap); most of them are political newcomers competing against well-established elites (political experience handicap); part of the general electorate can reject these candidates because of their prejudices (xenophobia handicap). For all these reasons parties are reluctant, or at least have some justifications to their reluctance.

Beside the attitudes of the general public, one cannot leave aside the attitudes of the migrant-origin population. After all, they also constitute a voting bloc which could impact the local political equilibrium. Some party strategists consider the visible minorities as a movable voting bloc (Garbaye, 2005, Geisser, 1997) without real political alignment. Though this conception seems wrong (see chapter in this volume), we can envisaged some kind of elasticity in this public when proposed

8 Bilal was also chosen to suit all the origins present in the RAPFI sample. Mohamed or Ahmed are arab surname, Bilal is used both in sub-Saharan Africa, Maghreb and Turkey. with an ethnic candidate. Is there an ethnic premium whatever the political etiquette when ethnic candidate is proposed to the minority voters?

We have chosen to address the reality of some of these assumptions, particularly the ethnic, political and social distance ones. For statistical reasons9 we have neutralize the political experience effect

Results

Responsiveness Overview

RAPFI Mirror Guillaume Guillaume Bilal Yassine Bilal Yassine Lachaise Lachaise Community service 56% 71% 70% 70% UMP M.D. 58% 73% 62% 69% Community service 76% 81% 65% 76% PS M.D. 58% 81% 61% 70% Table 1. Proportion of respondents agreeing on the fact that the “imaginary candidate” is able to understand citizens’ problems.

It may be the particular effect of singling out a specific (and new) candidate. Nevertheless, when compared with the overall negative judgment of the respondents regarding the French political class Bilal and Guillaume are quite well accepted. In each case a majority of respondents give him the ability to understand their problem whereas only 17% of the two samples consider that politicians in general care about what they think. The net experimental effect seems straightforward: between the less and the most desirable candidate there is a gap of 25 percentages points in the ethnic French and of 15 points among the general population.

For the RAPFI respondents the most desirable candidate is Bilal, and particularly when he is endorsed by the . The least desirable is Guillaume when he is endorsed by the UMP or when he is a “socialist notable”. The ethnic proximity increases the responsiveness of the candidate by 15 points when the imaginary candidate is UMP. The results are more contrasted with the PS endorsement: the biggest impact of ethnicity appears when the candidate is a “socialist notable” (23 points increase) whereas the community active socialist is judged in the same way by the ethnic French. Social distance could play a role among the RAPFI respondents, but only in interaction with the political endorsement. They tend to favor their “ethnic own” but except when the candidate have a social and socialist flavor.

Among the general population, responsiveness of the imaginary candidate seems less connected to political endorsement, social status or ethnicity, when compared to RAPFI respondents. Overall there is a favorable attitude regarding this political newcomer with a minimal approval rate of 61% and a maximal approval rate of 76%. Bilal seems more accepted than Guillaume, though the result may be

9 With a 2*2*2 design experimental cells contain 125 respondents in each survey. Adding another random variable could have eroded the quality of the whole design. more consistent with the PS endorsement rather than the UMP cases. The general public tends to be less sensible to the political etiquette, though it may be caused by a more balanced political equilibrium (see chapter 2). Nevertheless, neither ethnicity nor social status of the candidate create a significant political handicap for the candidate, on the contrary. The “notable model” defended by the mainstream parties, whether consciously or not, may not be as pregnant in the public’s mind when evaluating a candidate. There is not a schema in the public who disregard candidacy with a untraditional social profile, particularly when ethnicity is at stake. This is consistent with some of the results of Sineau and Tiberj (2007): it was found that, age, gender and social status did not significantly affect the real electoral score of the 2002 legislative candidates (ethnicity was not testable).

Determinants of responsiveness

So far, our two samples contradict the conventional wisdom of a public reticent toward untraditional candidates, whether socialist or conservative. Nevertheless, a simple descriptive investigation can hide other logics which could lead to false conclusions both for the general public and the ethnic minorities. Is each generic French equally prone to support a diversity candidate? To what extent, the support is affected by politics? Regarding the ethnic minorities, is there an impact of their political preferences or are they considered marginal as far as responsiveness of one of their ethnic own is taken into account? Do they replicate the same logics as the general population facing these candidates?

Naturally, a multitude of effects could be tested simultaneously. We chose to focus on the ones concerning the supposed ethnic penalty for the minority candidates. Actually this focus can be tested by a series of first order interaction effect. Beside the direct effect of the names, others can be thought about particularly regarding xenophobia. For example, the effect of ethnic prejudice cannot be integrated as a first order effect or it would suppose it penalizes (or favors ) to the same extent Bilal and Guillaume. Hence it will depend probably on the combination of several factors such as ideology, partisan endorsement and ethnicity of the candidate. Putting simply, authoritarian ( and xenophobic) attitudes tends to favor a vote for the right, consequently we can assume the more conservative the individuals the greater their support for a UMP candidate. But will it be the same, if this UMP candidate is a visible minority one? Will this also apply to the RAPFI respondent for whom ethnic prejudice and ethnic proximity could neutralize each others?

The tested model encapsulates several variables, the most important being the experimental effect of Bilal or Yassine and its interaction with prejudices, but we also have integrated some “control variables” which also are of substantial interest such as the other experimental conditions, an interaction between ideological leaning and partisan endorsement and a question taping the political distrust dimension10 .

RAPFI sample Mirror sample B S.E. Sig. B S.E. Sig. candidate's endorsement

10 How is democracy working in the country ? Very well, slightly well, slightly bad, very bad. We have tested an interaction effect between this question and the social and ethnic experimental condition. The results were not statistically significant. UMP -0,75 0,19 0,00 -1,38 0,24 0,00 PS endorsement*Ideology 0,10 0,00 UMP neither left nor 0,17 0,24 0,49 1,15 0,24 0,00 right UMP right 0,26 0,33 0,43 1,69 0,31 0,00 UMP left (redundant) PS neither left nor right -0,62 0,24 0,01 -0,85 0,24 0,00 PS right -0,05 0,37 0,89 -1,20 0,27 0,00 PS left Candidate's ethnicity Guillaume Lachaise -0,88 0,20 0,00 -0,80 0,22 0,00 Bilal Yassine Bilal*xenophobia -0,09 0,05 0,04 -0,14 0,04 0,00 Democracy is working? Badly -0,36 0,15 0,02 -0,52 0,15 0,00 Well Candidate's profession Community worker 0,16 0,15 0,29 0,15 0,15 0,31 MD Constant 1,89 0,22 0,00 2,18 0,27 0,00 R2 7,5% 13% Table 2. Determinants of the agreement on the fact that the “imaginary candidate” is able to understand citizens’ problems (logistic regression).

Inter-sample comparison shows both commonalities and specificities of the results. In term of commonalities, political distrust prevents voters to support the imaginary candidate (among the generic French the probability doubles whereas it only increases by 1,5 among the RAPFI respondents). They also follow the same variations regarding experimental conditions: no change regarding candidate’s profession, decrease when is endorsed by the UMP (by 2 among the RAPFI survey, by 4 among the generic French), increase regarding ethnicity. The singularity comes with the impact of ideology. The generic French apply more strongly a political schema when judging the candidate in comparison with the RAPFI respondents. Among the general population, the probability to support the candidate increases by 0,25 if he is Socialist or 0,33 if he is UMP, when comparing the maximal and the minimal ideological distance between the candidate and the respondents. In comparison among the RAPFI respondents the variations reach only 0,06 and 0,13. These differences could imply a lower level of political awareness among the RAPFI respondents, demonstrated here by a lower level of ideological constraint. It could also be a more widespread positive attitude toward this newcomer candidate, whereas the generic French judge him already through ideological glances without leaving him a chance to prove himself.

Figure 1. Impact of xenophobicprejudices on the average probability to agree that the “imaginary candidate” is able to understand citizens’ problems.

As far as ethnicity is concerned, overall an ethnic minority candidate seems to increase the public support. On this matter it shows that an untraditional candidate benefits probably from the overall critics addressed to the mainstream political class. With a French political elite too homogeneous socially, genderly, ethnically and generationally, it appears that French voters are ready to support some unconventional political offer, even from an ethnic minority.

But this support is definitely not equal in each part of the public. With minority candidate ethnic prejudice is playing a role. Roughly speaking, the net effect is positive until the level of prejudices reached a score of 6 which concerned nearly 78,5% of the mirror sample. After this threshold, an ethnic penalty applies, which can reach a -0,2 level.

Nevertheless, Bilal constitutes globally a bonus in term of candidate evaluation, particularly if a party looks toward a across-the-aisle kind of support. This is only if the UMP candidate is Bilal, that globally the leftist electorate will consider him favorably: the average probability is of 0,46 for Guillaume Lachaise and 0,57 for Bilal Yassine in this case. It is also the case but to a lesser extent of the rightist electorate vis-à-vis a PS candidate. It also tends to boost the support among the neither left nor right electorate, usually dissatisfied with the traditional actors of the political system and who becomes the pivotal group of voters in the French election. This boost is translated globally into a 0.06 increase of the average probability of support but can reach a 0,10 to 0,16 level among the least prejudiced part of this electorate.

An ethnic penalty is never to be found among the RAPFI respondents. Sure even among them with the increasing level of xenophobia the ethnic bonus decreases. But even among the most prejudiced (score 8 or more, i.e. 5% of the sample), Bilal is receiving a roughly same amount of support than Guillaume (with a difference between average probabilities never greater than 0,05).

In matter of responsiveness, the status quo regarding candidates profile advocated by the mainstream parties is definitely not backed by the voters. Candidate’s profession seems not an element of assessment for the voters and Ethnic minority belonging seems to play inversely than its supposed relation. It was already noticeable in the descriptive statistics but is also confirmed ceteris paribus. But support is not enough. Could it also be translated into vote?

The voting potential of a minority candidate

RAPFI Mirror Guillaume Guillaume Bilal Yassine Bilal Yassine Lachaise Lachaise 50% 65% 58% 61% Community service 45% 67% 57% 63% UMP M.D. 78% 81% 59% 72% Community service 70% 78% 53% 64% PS M.D. Table 3. Proportion of respondents agreeing to vote eventually for the “imaginary candidate”.

Sure, what we test here is more eligibility (i.e. the amount of symbolic and social electoral resources of the candidate) than real vote, particularly because we did not place Guillaume and Bilal in a usual partisan competition. Nevertheless, the results are quite striking. In terms of eligibility the traditional bourgeois and white candidate is definitely not the most eligible one, whatever the sample and the party endorsement, quite the contrary actually. On the one hand, except for the UMP candidate and the mirror sample where eligibility moves only in a 6 percentage points interval, this traditional candidate in the others cases is the one the less eligible: 53% of the respondent would vote for the socialist M.D. Guillaume Lachaise in the mirror sample, 70% in the RAPFI Survey, and 45% if Guillaume Lachaise is UMP in the RAPFI sample. On the other hand, the maximal eligibility is found in the most atypical candidate, i. e. a community worker Bilal Yassine. This is the case in the PS endorsement case for both samples. The respondents seem to demonstrate that actually minority belongings and non-bourgeois occupation could also be an asset on the electoral scene. This quite contradicts the idea of a conservative electorate, both socially and ethnically. Socially speaking, if Guillaume Lachaise is a community worker instead of a Doctor, his eligibility increases between 1 point (i.e. no change) and 8 points. The occupation condition seems not to play significantly among the Bilal conditions but this also a confirmation that notability is not as an asset asit is supposed to be. Once again, ethnicity is not rejected by the public.

So far the descriptive results confirm those regarding the responsiveness of the imaginary candidate, but the variations of support between the two questions are also of interest. Globally a potential vote is less widespread than assessing a positive response on the candidate responsiveness. Overall the mean decline counts for -5 percentage point but with sometimes stronger variations. The RAPFI interviewees behave quite particularly on these matters. On the one hand, when they are facing a UMP candidates they tend to be less supportive whatever the experimental condition (even when the candidate is one of their own), but this decrease is particularly strong in the case of the most traditional case where the Dr. Guillaume Lachaise lost 12 points of support. On the other hand, when the candidate is socialist, the discount is roughly null or actually “translates” into a strong increase in the case of a most traditional case (+12 points). In a nutshell, ideology seems to come back in their response.

RAPFI sample Mirror sample B S.E. Sig. B S.E. Sig. candidate's endorsement -1,33 0,19 0,00 -2,26 0,26 0,00 UMP PS endorsement*Ideology UMP neither left nor 0,04 0,23 0,87 1,89 0,25 0,00 right 0,89 0,36 0,01 2,34 0,31 0,00 UMP right

UMP left -0,90 0,25 0,00 -1,16 0,25 0,00 PS neither left nor right -0,63 0,36 0,08 -1,97 0,28 0,00 PS right PS left Candidate's ethnicity -0,54 0,19 0,00 -0,89 0,22 0,00 Guillaume Lachaise Bilal Yassine -0,01 0,05 0,79 -0,14 0,05 0,00 Bilal*xenophobia Democracy is working? -0,28 0,15 0,07 -0,22 0,16 0,16 Badly Well Candidate's profession 0,17 0,15 0,26 0,05 0,15 0,74 Community worker MD 1,84 0,23 0,00 2,20 0,28 0,00 Constant 11% 23% R2 Table 4. Determinants of the eligibility of the “imaginary candidate” (logistic regression).

When replicating the same model of analysis, the main differences between the two samples lessen. This time ideology is clearly playing a role in the RAPFI sample, this confirms these respondents do not lack of ideological constraint, but they stay more open to electoral newcomer than the rest of the population. The likelihood of voting for the UMP Guillaume Lachaise is 30% lower than the likelihood of voting for the PS Guillaume Lachaise among the immigrant-origin French, whereas the difference reaches 53% among the traditional French. To note the variation is less strong if Guillaume Lachaise was PS among the RAPFI sample (0,15) but it may be because of the strong records and support of this particular party on antiracism agenda (see chapter 2).

The major concern of this paper is on the eligibility on minority MP. This is confirmed both generally but also specifically among political segments of the two samples. Among the immigrant-French the ethnic bonus is quite low given their massive leftwing leaning (+0,04 for the UMP leaners, +0,06 for the PS leaners), but the major gains come from the “neither left nor right” and across the political divide. For the first group Bilal would increase the eligibility of a UMP candidate by 0,25 and the eligibility of a PS candidate by 0,17. For the ideological opponents, eligibility would increase by 0,09 for the UMP case and 0,15 for the PS case.

This pattern is less strong among the general population, probably because of a stronger ideological polarization, but still holds. Bilal could reinforce the eligibility by an average of 0,09 across the political divide and by 0,06 among the neither left nor right. But what is also interesting is the impact of prejudices. Except for the most prejudiced, for which average predicted probabilities tend to a slightly ethnic penalty, traditional parties would actually benefit from endorsing ethnic minorities candidates. For example, the average support for Bilal among the least prejudiced individuals increases by 0,10 to 0,13 across political groups. Naturally this ethnic bonus depends strongly on the composition of constituencies particularly regarding some good predictors of xenophobia such as age, education and occupation. Nevertheless the French public seems more advanced on this matter than the organizations supposed to channel their political demands.

Figure 2. Impact of ethnic prejudices on the average probability to vote for the imaginary candidate.

Conclusion

Definitely, diversity candidates are generally accepted, and usually supported by the French voters. The pivotal condition for increasing the minority political representation is therefore reached. Some will nevertheless argue that diversity MP candidates have been endorsed both by the UMP and the PS leadership for the 2007 legislative elections and they mostly have failed to get elected. This cannot be disregarded, but case study minors this general assessment. Jeannette Boughrab was endorsed by the UMP in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, one of the most leftists-leaning ward of the city. This is not a surprise she failed, particularly two month after a presidential campaign during which based his election on a particularly salient anti-immigration agenda (Tiberj, 2008). Since the electorate of this ward tends to be particularly reactive against this agenda, presenting any UMP candidate would have surely ended with the same result. Endorsing diversity MP candidate in unwinnable constituencies is not enough an argument for contradicting the results of our analysis. Another example comes from the Malek Boutih case. This PS candidate was endorsed in a winnable constituency in Charente. He failed, but the main cause was his lack of local political support not his ethnicity. At the first round he competed with a local dissident female PS candidate who eventually got elected at the second round. This demonstrates the necessity to promote already locally-implanted ethnic minority candidates, a necessity which holds for any kind of candidates

Voters seem ready, this leaves therefore the mainstream parties and their endorsement policies as the principal barrier for improving the political representation of the ethnic minorities. Actually this situation will become more and more unbearable for various reasons. Firstly, intra- and extra-party lobbying, one of the necessary conditions identified by Kittilson and Tate, is becoming more and more organized in France. The first wave of partisan adhesions happened in the end of the 80’s (Leveau and Withol de Wenden, 2001 , Geisser and Zoum, 2008) and constitutes an already trained reservoir of possible candidates. Secondly, the already in-place adherents are now trying to act collectively and they are backed in this endeavor by a growing associational networks among them the Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires de France (CRAN) which regularly denounced the lack of minority political representation. Thirdly, the national media have become attentive to the necessity of the ethnic political representation. This is definitely the results of a frame produced jointly by the debate about women’s representation but also because of the various debate regarding racial discriminations and the acknowledgement of the reality of a French melting-pot. The lack of ethnic minority representation is now regularly covered since the 2004 regional elections. This cross-pressures both from within and outside mainstream political parties will probably become unbearable in the next years. A real color representation in France may be therefore not as far away as it is usually foreseen.

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