It’s Not the Economy Stupid! Young People’s Vote in the 2022 French Presidential Election

Résumé En

This study takes seriously the question of heterogeneity and intersectionality of youth identities by asking what factors drive young people’s voting behaviour. We aim to test whether vote choice among young voters is primarily determined by their attitudes on identity and post-materialist politics (such as immigration, the environment, and gender equality), and less so by their attitudes on economic issues (such as preferences for redistribution). In other words, attitudes on "cultural" issues might structure their voting preferences more than that of other age groups, for whom attitudes on "economic" issues might be much more important. We argue that the growing importance of identity politics for young voters could translate into anincreased propensity to vote for green, radical left and radical right parties – at least for some of them. To test these hypotheses empirically, we use quantitative methods and analyze survey data from a recent post-election survey “youngelect” of the 2022 French Presidential Election.Specifically, we focus on young people aged 18-34 and the determinants of their voting preferences for conservatives, social democrat, the radical left, the radical right, green and liberal candidates. In a first step, we will explore and describe the patterns of French young voters voting behaviour in the 2022 Presidential Election. In a second step, we compare the micro-determinants of their voting preferences with the determinants of voting preferences of other age groups by using multivariate multinomial regression analyses.