For whom do the airbusians vote, how has the electoral sociology of aeronautics evolved? Obviously relevant question in Toulouse and more generally in the districts where the majority of Airbus employees (27,000 in Toulouse) and its subcontractors live: the first around Blagnac, the fourth more Toulouse from Saint-Simon to Place Dupuy by the way by Saint-Cyprien and the sixth from Colomiers to Toulouse Gascony.
Changing mindsets
The NUPES indeed came first, sometimes largely, last June 12 in the offices of neighborhoods Saint Simon (40%) or Saint-Martin-du-Touch (39%), at Colomiers (35%), Blagnac (32%) or Beauzelle (31%). Should we conclude from this that aeronautical employees – of whom a distinction should in absolute terms be made between engineers and technicians, executives and others – are “lefting”?
Yes for Jacques Rocca, former Airbus and unsuccessful candidate of the centrist Alliance in the fourth constituency. “Some will vote against aviation, it’s a way to redeem yourself for them because they have the impression of belonging to a polluting industry“, he concedes. “Thehe new generations aspire to something else”, continues the man who has set up his communication company since leaving Airbus. “Their sociological codes and references, such as having more free time, correspond more to what the Naked than Macron“
Some don’t want promotion anymore, they prefer to earn less but enjoy their children. It’s a real change in mentality, which we can also see in other sectors. — Jacques Rocca
Sociological references such as the use of the bicycle also serve as indicators that are not anecdotal. Aerospace employees, thanks to a voluntarist policy also from large companies, have largely taken over this mode of transport. It is also a sector in which they convert, as much if not more moreover by economic relevance, than by political conviction. Certainly, it is not because we take our bike every morning to go to work that we necessarily vote for the left, but that is part of the codes which belong more to left-wing values, with political commitments made by personalities most often socialists or ecologists.
Blagnac has always been on the left, but center-left. The Airbus electorate, through the company’s benefits policy, has become very sensitive to issues of personal comfort. — Bernard Keller former mayor of Blagnac
Bernard Keller, PRG mayor for more than 20 years in Blagnac, worked behind the scenes for the candidate of the presidential majority!, Pierre Baudis. Also a former Airbus employee, Bernard Keller shares the same analysis as Jacques Rocca and speaks of “social-gentrification“Airbusiens, rather than leftist. He is surprised however that a more radical left appeals to them.”In my time, you could fully invest yourself at Airbus, not count your hours and vote PS. Today they vote for France Insoumise”, is surprised the one who resigned from his mandates in 2017.
A center-right anchor still well sealed
Make no mistake about it, the residential towns of the Airbusians have not, for the most part, favored the troops of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. First of all, Together! came out ahead in most of them in the first round of legislative elections: in Seilh (40%), Pibrac (35%), Gagnac-sur-Garonne (34%), Tournefeuille (34%), Cornebarrieu (32%), or even Léguevin and Salvetat-Saint- Gilles.
And these cities where aeronautical employees live are not hermetic to the left, far from it, we stay in Haute-Garonne. For a long time the deputies of the first, fourth and sixth constituencies were socialists before the raid of En Marche in 2017. Blagnac or Colomiers are historically socio-liberal lands. And many of these cities are run by mayors, from a long socialist-radical tradition in the Midi-Pyrenees communities. This is the case of Beauzelle, Plaisance-du-Touch or Tournefeuille. What is most surprising, however, is the score of the NUPES in municipalities that could be described as right: 26% in Cornebarrieu, 28% in Léguevin, 25% in Gagnac-sur-Garonne.
In Toulouse, it is more difficult to observe the phenomenon outside the Saint-Simon and Saint-Martin-du-Touch districts, where one can guess by their geographical position and their sociological composition that there are many “aero” outbreaks there. Many aeronautical executives and engineers have taken up residence in the beautiful districts of Toulouse, Busca, Carmes or Côte Pavée, or residential districts with a high density of individual houses such as Lardenne or Saouzelong.
The political complexity, the almost paradox of the Ville Rose then takes on its full meaning, this city which places Jean-Luc Mélenchon on a throne (37% of the votes in the first round ahead of Emmanuel Macron at 26%) while the ecologists fail to take it. As political scientist Jérome Fouquet explains in a post-municipal analysis for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, the pro-plane speeches of the mayor of Toulouse and the anti-aircraft speeches of the environmental candidate Antoine Maurice probably weighed in the Airbus vote in 2020. last municipal, the green wave which took Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg or Poitiers, shattered on the Moudenc dike in Toulouse. Proof if any that aeronautics is not yet left.