2023-06-07 19:24:32
The colors of Europe have nevertheless been worn in France, these last six years enamelled with great speeches on the future of the Community. The presidential election of 2022, during the French Presidency of the Council of the EU, was again steeped in Union. This was obviously not enough to arouse the enthusiasm of the French, according to the last Eurobarometer (1) unveiled just a year before the next European elections, on Sunday June 9, 2024 in France.
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For now, French interest in these elections (40%) remains a big notch below the European average (56%). It is to The Netherlands (75%) that attention is the strongest, while Czech (27%) and Slovak (26%) citizens show the least interest. France is penultimate. And we find it at the very end of the ranking concerning the level of information of its population on the date of the future election: only 20% of French people know that it will take place next year, far, very far from the average Europeans (45%).
The chain of crises – from the Covid to the war in Ukraine, without forgetting the climate emergency – was content to make the Habs shudder with the urgency of going to vote in the next elections (43%, or 3 points more than in 2019). But without reaching the importance of the ballot felt by all the Member States (48%). “Of course, there is a lack of media coverage, and an undervaluation of these issues on a whole part of the national political field, but that is not enough to explain such a level of disconnection with other countries”, emphasizes Emmanuel Rivière, international director for political studies at the Kantar Public Institute.
National interferences
Unlike other poorly ranked member states, such as Bulgaria or Slovenia, which recently joined the EU, France is a founding country of the EU and, therefore, should be more familiar with the institutions. And, unlike the Greeks, marked by the painful European rescue plans to pay off the country’s debt, the French rather have the feeling that their country’s voice carries in the European Parliament.
The explanation must therefore be sought elsewhere. Emmanuel Rivière advances a systemic hypothesis. “Our very unitary presidential regime is struggling to adapt to the European Union’s culture of compromise. The French are struggling to bring this unusual grammar into public life. »
This may help to explain the fact that the French have a distorted image of the European voting system. Only 48% know that MEPs are directly elected by citizens, compared to 61% for the average European. Only the Dutch (44%) are more mistaken.
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