BFMTV SURVEY – More than 7 out of 10 French people did not find the President of the Republic convincing on the pension reform, adopted in Parliament despite a major protest movement in the country.
“If it is necessary to endorse the unpopularity of the country, I will endorse it”. According to a new “L’Opinion en direct” survey conducted by the Elabe Institute for BFMTV, 61% of French people feel that the remarks made by Emmanuel Macron during his interview on Wednesday will result in more anger in the country, in the midst of a political crisis linked to pension reform.
On the contrary, a handful of respondents felt that the words used by the president during this speech lead to appeasement (11%). At the same time, 7 out of 10 French people (71%) who saw, listened to or heard of the interview with the President of the Republic did not find it convincing, according to this same Elabe survey.
65% of French people think he is a bad president
The popularity of the head of state has taken a hit since the start of the pension reform sequence and the protest movement around it: only 24% of French people think that Emmanuel Macron is a good president. 65% consider, on the other hand, that he is a bad President of the Republic.
His personality is pointed out by the people questioned by our survey: 69% of the French people polled find him arrogant, they are just as much to find him authoritarian. Finally Emmanuel Macron worries 61% of those questioned.
Moreover, many of them do not trust it to carry out the country’s major projects, both in terms of value sharing (78%) and purchasing power (77%), the climate (73 %) or full employment (71%). Added to this is the regret for 19% of Emmanuel Macron’s voters in the first round of the presidential election to have voted for him.
The French hostile to the reform but the challenge less sustained
A president criticized, just like the text that he considers necessary for the survival of the pension system. 72% (+3 points compared to the last Elabe survey) of French people consider the government reform unfair, 63% (+5 points) consider it to be ineffective in ensuring the sustainability of the pension system and 56% (+4 points ) believe that it is not necessary.
If a majority of French people want the mobilization to continue (65%), or even to harden (44%), this trend is down compared to the previous Elabe survey for BFMTV.
Sample of 1037 people representative of residents of mainland France aged 18 and over. The representativeness of the sample was ensured according to the quota method applied to the following variables: sex, age and profession of the interviewee after stratification by region and category of agglomeration. Query by Internet on March 22, 2023. Field carried out entirely after the television interview with Emmanuel Macron on the JT at 1 p.m.
