“Regional” accents in politics: An obstacle or an advantage for candidates? Experimental evidence from France

Evidence from a wide variety of countries suggests that language discrimination is anything but a marginal phenomenon. While many studies have identified the challenges faced by citizens who do not speak in accordance with the prevailing norm in the workplace, the obstacles that they may encounter when they run for political office have received far less attention. Does having a “non-standard” accent constitute a disadvantage in politics? Can it serve to appeal to specific electorates? This article focuses on the role that “language-based” judgments play in shaping the public image of political figures. Using a preregistered experiment embedded in a survey fielded in France (n = 2,474), it analyzes the effects of political candidates’ “regional” accents on voters’ attitudes, with a more specific focus on the accent associated with southwestern France. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, each consisting of a 45-second audio recording that varied the candidate’s accent and gender. After listening to the recording, they were asked to rate the candidate’s personal qualities and representational abilities, and to estimate how likely they would be to support them. The results show that, contrary to what one might expect given the existing literature, French voters do not tend to evaluate political candidates with a “regional” accent more negatively. On average, they even rate their personal qualities more positively than those of candidates with a “standard” accent. This finding holds regardless of the candidate’s gender. The analyses further show that the advantage granted to candidates with a “southwestern” accent is particularly strong in Occitanie but also pronounced in the Paris region. By contrast, it is almost non-existent in other regions of France. Candidates with a “regional” accent are evaluated especially positively by voters who are typically critical of political elites, suggesting that such pronunciations may help candidates differentiate themselves from conventional political figures.