Only 28 % of respondents have the feeling that belonging to the European Union is a bad thing, against 40 % in 2014, according to the tenth wave of the study carried out by Ipsos-Sopra Steria for “Le Monde “, The Jean Jaurès Foundation and the Cevipof.
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In less than seven months, the war in Ukraine seems to have already changed the French report not only to international threats, but also to Europe. Unprecedented phenomenon for several years, the place of Europe in the hearts of the French has strengthened and support for actions undertaken against Russia dominates. Over the months, what is at stake is not so much the condemnation of the violation of a large number of principles of international law as the challenge of liberal democracies.
These attacks on the Western political system install an anxiety -provoking climate in nearly nine out of ten French people. Unanimity that largely transcends ideological, economic and social positions. However, there is a nuance between those who declare that they live in a dangerous world (35 %) and those who share this perspective “rather” (54 %). This nuance is important because it clearly distinguishes sympathizers from the National Rally (RN) and reconquest! Supports by Emmanuel Macron, who are half as many times to perceive the world as “dangerous”.
A second sociological cleavage completes this portrait: people who position themselves at the top of a social scale as “privileged classes” are 26 % to consider the international environment as dangerous, against 37 % for “disadvantaged classes”. This result underlines the social effects of an unstable geopolitical context where the most privileged citizens are also those which can benefit from personal resources, individual or collective protections to face and reduce the impact of such threats.
The feeling of danger is not only maintained by geopolitical risks. It is also powered by environmental disasters or the risk of pandemic. But it is the occurrence of a world war in the coming months that worries a majority of French people (64 %). Among them, 16 %envisage it in certainty, in particular those under 35 (20 %), practicing Catholics (26 %), the people most interested in politics (26 %), people positioning themselves very Right (26 %) and the most disadvantaged social classes (30 %).
Union is strength
The survey shows, moreover, that if the French can be very divided on lines of internal fractures in the country, they are surprisingly less polarized on the geopolitical issue and on the merits of belonging to the Union European (EU). There is little doubt that the Ukrainian conflict has no equivalent, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, in terms of reconfiguring world alliances. And as indicated by the “alliances theory” which seemed obsolete a few years ago, interstate alliances are all the more justified as states are aligned with the same political, economic and ideological positions.
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