16
RlCE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
that 31 percent of the 515 workers polled intended to vote Gaullist on the
first ballot, as opposed to only 30 percent of that intention in the entire
sample of 1,780 persons.72
Interestingly enough, the extended electorate diverges rather more seri-
ously from the national distribution of professions than does the restricted
electorate. A clear majority of workers apparently voted “no” in the Octo-
ber, 1962, referendum, while de Gaulle’s plea for “the warm confidence
of the Nation” was answered affirmatively by at least two-to-one majorities
among merchants, housewives, and retired persons.73 In the second ballot
of the 1965 presidential election, an IFOP poll found that among those
respondents who expressed an opinion, de Gaulle had the support of 67
percent of merchants and industrialists, 63 percent of liberal professional
men and high-level management personnel, 60 percent of retired persons,
59 percent of farmers, and 55 percent of medium-level employees, but
only 45 percent of workers.7 '
The extended electorate tends to absorb much of the traditional Right,
as parties of the Left join to challenge de Gaulle. The restricted electorate
is “rather representative of French diversity,” however, both in its socio-
economic composition and — to a lesser extent — in the political origins
of its voters. Among the 114 UNR voters in the 796 person FNSP-IFOP
sample of 1958, 2 admitted to having voted Communist in 1956, 7 had
voted Socialist, 7 for Radicals, 15 for the MRP, 14 for Independents, 2 for
Poujadists, 13 for Social Republicans (the Gaullist rump party), and 12
had abstained.75 Of another 42 who declined to report their 1956 vote, some
very likely voted for parties of the Left and were now — as Gaullists — re-
luctant to admit that fact.7'1 Leaving this latter category aside, if one con-
siders the MRP to be a party of the Center (a designation some would con-
test), Gaullist acquisitions in 1958 appear to have come as much from the
Left (Communist, Socialist, and — Left only in a traditional sense — Rad-
ical) as from the Right (Independent and Poujadist). Even in the legislative
elections of November, 1962, when the Independents dropped from 20.1
percent of the vote in 1958 to 13.4 percent, the influx of UNR voters
included many from the Left. The 1962 FNSP-IFOP survey found 400
UNR first ballot voters in a sample of 1,534. Of these 400, 4 had voted
Communist in 1958, 23 Socialist, 10 Radical, 51 MRP, 174 UNR, 5C
Independent, 9 for splinter parties, 30 had abstained, and 49 declined tc
state.77
Even the extended Gaullist electorate is more catholic than its foes on
the Left imply. In the October, 1962, referendum — despite the strong
urging of their party — 7 percent of those voters who a month later voted
Communist chose to acclaim de Gaulle with a “yes” vote. So also did 27
percent of those who voted Socialist, 41 percent of those who voted Radical,