The dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale on June 9, 2024, will undoubtedly go down as one of the most incomprehensible presidential decisions in the history of the French Fifth Republic, and an annual political confidence barometer, carried out by the OpinionWay institute for Sciences Po's Center for Political Research (CEVIPOF), published on Tuesday, February 11, has confirmed this impression once again. This vast annual survey was carried out in four countries – France, Germany, Italy and, for the first time, the Netherlands – from January 17 to February 5, one month after Prime Minister François Bayrou was appointed to office.
The consequences President Emmanuel Macron's decision has had on French society have proven to be considerable and unprecedented – government instability, economic uncertainty, increasing complexity in the political arena, a crisis of legitimacy for those in power – to the extent that the period following on from June 2024 has permanently undermined French people's confidence in their representatives, but also their trust in the validity of the democratic system itself.
This snapshot of a part of European public opinion depicts France as an island of pessimism amid its neighbors. More than last year, French people cited feelings of distrust (45%), weariness (40%) and moroseness (30%) when asked to describe their current state of mind. Fear (18%) was also on the rise.
The dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale has had the effect of accelerating political unease. The poll's French respondents had the highest level of mistrust in politics (74%), a 4-point increase on the year before. The gap with Germany and Italy, where mistrust of politics has been on the decline, is widening. Across the Rhine, where a similar political crisis has been raging since the three-party coalition led by Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz broke up, a third of those polled continued to express a sense of serenity – despite the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
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