A different country: Urban vs rural

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For 58.55% of voters in April’s French presidential election, the sight of a victorious Emmanuel Macron in front of the Eiffel Tower, speaking with hand on heart as he took up the post for another five years, will have been a relief. For 41.45% of voters – Marine Le Pen supporters mainly based outside France’s cities and in its rural heartlands – this was a worst-case scenario.

France is deeply divided between its cities and its rural areas. It is a trend that has been seen across the continent, from the UK to Hungary, Poland, Italy and Germany, among others.

A Cambridge University study carried out last year by Michael Kenny and Davide Luca, called The urban-rural polarisation of political disenchantment, sought to examine the extent of the political divide between the countryside and cities in 30 European countries, including all 27 EU nations, plus the UK, Norway and Switzerland. The study used data from the European Social Survey – which runs every two years – between ...