The rise of a geography of discontent highlighted in recent studies points to a strong association between voting for populist parties and territories with socioeconomic difficulties. While discontent has primarily been addressed through the analysis of the populist votes, we provide here additional elements of analysis by comparing these populist votes to the Yellow Vests movement, and we distinguish the populist votes coming from the far left party and those from the far right party. Our results highlight that French populist supporters cannot be confused with the Yellow Vests movement’s activists, and that their sensitivity to territorial dimensions also differs, especially in terms of access to public services. The geography of protest takes multiple shapes and cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between urban and mostly rural or peripheral areas. This sends a signal which raises serious concerns about the dynamics of territories and the deleterious effects of metropolization and the closure of public services in peri-urban and rural territories.
Geography of contestation: a study on the yellow vests movement and the rise of populism in France
