🚨 New working paper alert 🚨 Missing summer — and the Tour de France? Don’t worry, we got you covered. 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️ In this paper, we show that being on the route of Tour de France reduces far-right voting. osf.io/preprints/so...

Existing research finds that far-right parties do well in "left-behind" places. We argue that the tour can shape this in two ways: 1- Short boosts in local economy 2- Symbolically through national visibility and recognition.

On average, being on the Tour route lowers far-right vote share by about 0.03–0.04 SD. In recent elections, the effect exceeds 0.1 SD. This lines up with the surge in far-right support — suggesting the Tour is most effective at shifting newer, less committed voters away from the far right.

We also find that the effect is largest in poorer municipalities and where the far-right had previous support.

We find mixed evidence for the economic channel (municipal GDP per capita increases, but no effect on unemployment) and more evidence in support of the symbolic channel (larger decline in far-right voting when a French wins a stage)

Suggestive evidence from a two-wave survey around the 2025 Tour is also consistent with the symbolic mechanism.

The results are robust to multiple specifications and tests