Immigration, Public Housing, and Support for the French National Front

Original

Immigration, Public Housing, and Support for the French National Front

Gloria Gennaro

Abstract

In Europe, urban peripheries that host public housing estates are often inhab-ited by a diverse population, including many migrants. In those places, far-rightparties enjoy growing electoral support. This paper asks: Can expansionary publichousing policies boost the electoral support of far-right parties in diverse communi-ties? I exploit the staggered roll-out of a French public housing policy to show thatresidents of municipalities with large pre-policy immigration shares vote more forthe National Front in response to public housing expansion. The opposite happensin municipalities with low pre-policy exposure to immigration. The paper investi-gates three potential mechanisms: compositional changes, material grievances, andlatent group conflict. Separate empirical analyses of sociodemographic, housing,and newspaper data suggest that the third mechanism may drive the results. Thepaper further discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findingsfor understanding the challenges of adapting the welfare state to increasingly diversesocieties.