Low educational attainment is one of the factors most predictive of voting for France’s far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National, previously known as the Front National). Beyond this statistical observation, studies find that voters’ educational trajectories are often troubled, relatively short and difficult. There is thus a distant or even defiant relationship with school that appears to be one of the factors common to a significant proportion of the party’s electorate.
This is not to suggest that there is a direct and necessary link between a “lack of culture” and the xenophobic leanings that fuel those who vote for the far-right. But low levels of education have social consequences. In a society where education has become so important, feeling that one is without it can produce uncertainty and pessimism that structure electoral preferences.
This situation also generates a specific relationship with the school system, even for voters who have achieved a certain degree of social stability. It is this relationship to school and its social and political consequences that I would like to focus on here.
