EXCLUSIVE SURVEY – “Piss off the unvaccinated”: a majority of French people disapprove of Emmanuel Macron’s words

A shocking sentence and a mixed echo among the population. The day after the publication of Emmanuel Macron’s statements in the columns of the Parisian, the French say they are mostly opposed to the words of the Head of State. During an exchange with citizens, the President of the Republic affirmed that he had “very want to piss off” the unvaccinated, and that he intended to do so “until the end”, lamenting a “refractory minority” to the vaccine.

According to a Harris Interactive poll for LCI, this statement divides the population. 60% of French people believe that Emmanuel Macron was wrong to express himself as he did. They are even 44% to judge that the Head of State has “not at all right” for having expressed himself thus. Unsurprisingly, it is the unvaccinated who remain the most hostile to this declaration: only 7% of them think that the President of the Republic was right to use such words (against 44% for the vaccinated).

Support for presidential statements also varies depending on partisan proximity. 77% of supporters of the presidential majority believe that Emmanuel Macron was right to use these terms. An indicator that drops to 43% for supporters of the Socialist Party, 41% for Republicans, 39% for environmentalists, 28% for supporters of Eric Zemmour (Reconquest), 20% for the National Rally and 16% for the France rebellious.

Overall, 68% of the French believe that it is a bad thing for a President of the Republic to use colloquial terms. Once again, only supporters of the presidential majority (60%) overwhelmingly believe the opposite.

Basically, however, the situation is different. According to this survey, 60% of French people share the government’s policy of placing constraints on the unvaccinated in order to encourage them to take the plunge. A desire that is most noticeable among those vaccinated: 68% of them are in favor of this strategy.

90% of supporters of the presidential majority also share this policy, as do 76% of socialist supporters, and 69% of environmentalists and Republicans. The supporters of rebellious France (48% agree), of Reconquest (42%) and of the National Rally (37%) are more hostile to it.

Survey conducted online by Harris Interactive for LCI this Wednesday, January 5 with a sample of 1002 people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over. Representativeness was ensured by the quota method. The margin of error is between 1.4 and 3.1 points.