In this introduction, we advocate for an approach based on values when trying to make sense of shifts and changes that occurred in French politics during the last four decades. Values play a pivotal role in structuring political views and policy preferences. They influence citizens' attitudes and behaviors as well as reflect long-lasting political cultures and cleavages. After presenting the data collected within the European values studies, on which the six articles included in this issue build, we explain how these contributions highlight some major French political dynamics by scrutinizing key driving forces such as the individualization process, generational replacement or ideological consistency in economic and cultural beliefs, and by reassessing how attitudes toward democracy, religiosity and nationalism shape political attitudes. Challenging dominant narratives of value crisis, this issue sets up an agenda for future research on French politics through the lens of value change.
Keywords Values • Political changes • French politics • European values studies (EVS)French politics is no longer what it used to be. Prior to the last presidential election, France had been governed since 1981 alternately by parties claiming to walk in De Gaulle's footsteps, successively, the RPR, UDF, UMR and LR 1 , and by the Socialist party and its allies. Conversely, the current president of France is the leader of a party, La République En Marche (LREM), which barely predates the 2017 French presidential election. Emmanuel Macron was a first-time runner when he came to office. In a similar vein, what was widely characterized as a political thunderstorm, that is, the 2002 qualification of the National Front candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen,