'The elephant in the room' no more: Europe as a structuring line of political cleavage in the 2017 presidential election
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Date
2017-08-01
Authors
Schön-Quinlivan, Emmanuelle
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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
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Abstract
It is traditionally argued that the topic of European integration is rather absent or under-discussed in French political debate. In this context, it came as a surprise that the 2017 French presidential election turned into a ‘référendum sur l’appartenance à l’Union’ (Costa 2017). This article argues that after many presidential campaigns where Europe remained ‘the elephant in the room’, 2017 saw its settling as a clear line of cleavage between political parties, relegating the traditional left/right cleavage to a secondary position. The politicisation of socio-economic questions at European level also signalled a move away from the traditional value-based Eurosceptic grounds towards a will to shape the debate in the direction of a more social Europe.
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Keywords
Legislative election , France , Europe , Cleavage , Euroscepticism
Citation
Schön-Quinlivan, E. (2017) ''The elephant in the room' no more: Europe as a structuring line of political cleavage in the 2017 presidential election, French Politics, 15(3), pp. 290-302. doi:10.1057/s41253-017-0041-x
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© 2017, Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in French Politics. The definitive publisher-authenticated version [Schön-Quinlivan, E. (2017) ''The elephant in the room' no more: Europe as a structuring line of political cleavage in the 2017 presidential election, French Politics, 15(3), pp. 290-302. doi: 10.1057/s41253-017-0041-x] is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-017-0041-x