Where do French cabinet ministers come from? Towards representation and democracy

Abstract

Though the territorial dimension of ministerial recruitment has been explored in several countries, it remains a blind spot in France. This research note aims to fill this gap by investigating the regional origin of cabinet ministers under the Fifth Republic through an original data set. This descriptive analysis stresses the existence of three concentric circles in terms of ministerial appointments: Paris (overrepresented), mainland regions (underrepresented) and peripheral territories (almost absent). The sharing of portfolios follows the same logic. Parisian ministers have occupied all the possible positions—especially the highest ones—but most ministers from mainland France have also led important ministries. Though the matching is far from perfect, some portfolios are more frequently attributed to ministers from a given region.