According to a Cluster 17 study for “Le Point”, the French are mostly opposed to a pension reform and anticipate social mobilization.
Through Alice Pairo-Vasseur
© QUENTIN DE GROEVE / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
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HASWhen the government is due to present its pension reform project, involving the postponement of the legal retirement age, this Tuesday, January 10, what is the state of mind of the French on this subject? The independent polling institute Cluster 17 interviewed them* to Point (sample of 2,621 people) and reveals the image of a country divided and under high social tension.
“Public opinion is overwhelmingly resistant to the idea of pension reform”, comment its authors in the preamble, while nearly three quarters of French people (74%) express negative feelings (35% trusting their “ anger”, 30% their “weariness” and 9% a feeling of “humiliation”). Only 16% of French people view this reform positively (11% declaring themselves “satisfied”, 3% “relieved” and 2% “enthusiastic”).
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An “inflammable” reform
Feelings whose distribution owes nothing to chance. Thus, the voters of Emmanuel Macron and Valérie Pécresse are the most favorable to the reform (respectively 46% and 33%), although the latter are also the subject of divisions within their ranks (38% and 52 % of them perceiving it negatively). When the reform offers, on the contrary, a framework favorable to the oppositions – which could thus federate their electoral coalition in the rejection of the reform (85% of Marine Le Pen voters declaring themselves unfavorable to it, a level of rejection which reaches 95% among voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon).
So many tensions that can be explained “by the social context and, even more, by the perception that citizens have of it”, decipher the authors of the study. “What dominates today in the country is a diffuse feeling of deterioration of living conditions”, they observe, while 56% of respondents consider that their “personal situation” has “deteriorated” in recent months. .
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A feeling that raises the question of the mobilizing, not to say “inflammable” nature of the reform and the risk for the country of experiencing, or not, a social movement. A possibility that one in two French people believe. 49% of respondents considering as foreseeable “a massive social movement of the Yellow Vests type”, underline, thus, the authors of the study who see in figures the “eminently tense nature of the social situation”. Especially since the “clusters” declaring themselves the most “angry” are also “the most used to collective action” and “the most advanced in the context of the Yellow Vests movement”.
Between “weariness” and “anger”
Those most convinced that a “social explosion” could occur in the coming weeks come mainly from the hard core of the Lepenist electorate – i.e. a population largely coming from peripheral France having in common a strong rejection of the system and the elites – and of the most Melenchonist segments, again reveals the study, which distinguishes that “only the presidential electorate, in its majority, does not believe in such an eventuality”.
So, between opponents anticipating social mobilization – no doubt because they hope so – and supporters of government action, what will happen? “If the potential for protest and mobilization is high, this will not necessarily lead to large-scale mobilization”, specify the authors of the study. The latter depends on “multiple factors”, including that of knowing which of the two feelings will prevail, between “weariness” and “anger”…
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* Study carried out by Cluster17 for Le Point with a sample of 2,621 people representative of the French population aged 18 and over. The sample is drawn up using the quota method, with regard to the criteria of gender, age, socio-professional category, type of municipality and region of residence. Self-administered online questionnaire. Interviews conducted from January 6 to 8, 2023.