Macron dealt blow as poll finds 70% of French think he’s bad president

Violent clashes continue over France’s pension age reforms

Emmanuel Macron has been delivered a blow after a new poll found 70 percent of French people think he is a bad president. The popularity rating of the head of state has fallen sharply this month and is down to 30 percent, its lowest level since 2019, according to the latest political barometer of Odoxa.

While six out of ten French people want the National Assembly to be dissolved.

The poll shows Mr Macron is paying the price for his forced pension reform.

The popularity rating of the French leader, which was still at 36 percent of favourable opinions in February, has dropped by six points this month, according to the Odoxa political barometer, conducted for Public Sénat and the regional daily press.

According to the survey conducted on March 22 and 23, after the application of the 49.3 on the pension reform bill and after his interview on national television, 70 percent of French people now say that Mr Macron is a bad president, an 11 point increase since the reform was launched in December.

This is its lowest level since the end of the great national debate that followed the Yellow Vests movement in spring 2019.

Macron’s televised statement has clearly accentuated the gap between him and left-wing supporters.

He now collects 64 percent of negative judgments among people close to the Socialist Party (+14 points), 72 percent among ecologists (+12 points) and 90 percent among LFI supporters (+6 points).

His popularity also fell by three points among Renaissance supporters, to 89 percent. On the other hand, he has risen by 12 points among LR supporters, to reach 51 percent of favourable judgments.

The popularity rating of his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne is also decreasing, but to a lesser extent. With a drop of one point in March, her level reached a new low at 28 percent of favourable opinions. No head of government under Mr Macron has ever fallen so low.

In the history of the Odoxa barometer, one has to go back to June 2016, at the time of the protest against the Labour Law. The socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls had fallen to 24 percent at that time.

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The popularity of the most media-savvy ministers is also falling, notably Bruno Le Maire (21 percent favourable, -7 points), Olivier Véran (20 percent, -5 points) and Gérald Darmanin (19 percent, -5 points). The Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, who has been very exposed during this period, has only 9 percent of favourable opinions (-1 point).

The former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who has been relatively discreet since this winter, has not escaped the movement. His popularity has dropped by seven points, to 34 percent. He remains at the top of the list of the 24 political personalities tested by Odoxa, but Marine Le Pen is getting closer to the first place with 32 percent of support (-3 points).

On the right, Éric Ciotti is also being punished by voters, with a drop of three points: his rating falls to 10 percent.

Among the personalities on the left, there were few notable gains. Jean-Luc Mélenchon stabilised at 22 percent of support.

Asked about a way out of the political crisis engulfing France, 61 percent wanted the National Assembly to be dissolved in order to hold new legislative elections (38 percent said they were against this option and 1 percent did not know).

Additional reporting by Maria Ortega

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71 percent of French people hope for a referendum, already proposed by left-wing parliamentarians, to reverse the extension of the legal retirement age beyond 62.

The Constitutional Council is currently studying whether this request is admissible or not. Thus, among the people questioned, 71 percent hope that this referendum will take place and 75 percent even say they are ready to participate.

Protests and strikes against the unpopular pension reforms kicked off again Tuesday across France, with police security ramped up amid government warnings that radical demonstrators intended “to destroy, to injure and to kill.”

Concerns that violence could mar the demonstrations prompted what Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described as an unprecedented deployment of 13,000 officers, nearly half of them concentrated in the French capital.

The survey was conducted on 22 and 23 March 2023, on the Internet, among a sample of 1,004 French people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over.

Additional reporting by Maria Ortega

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