Ne me quitte pas! School closures and electoral outcomes in France

This article analyzes the causal impact of school closures on electoral outcomes in France between 1995 and 2022. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that the closure of the only school in a given municipality leads to an increase in 0.527 percentage points in votes for the populist far right and 0.968 percentage points for the left in presidential elections. Voters prefer the populist far right when their pre-existing levels of trust in mainstream parties are low. The identified electoral effects are absent in municipalities with multiple schools, suggesting that citizens are particularly concerned with the lack of access to public education.