“We are experiencing a listening crisis”

At the end of this year of unpublished political imbalance, in what state of mind are the French?

I have been studying at Ifop for thirty years, and I have never seen an act as misunderstood as that of the dissolution of June 2024. Why did the President of the Republic decided? The French still do not know it. This decision is deemed irrational, thoughtless, insane, especially after European elections during which the voters had clearly spoken, with a satisfactory participation rate. When we question our fellow citizens about the state of the country, the word that comes out the most in a spontaneous way is that of “shock”. Terrorist shock in 2015, shock of yellow vests in 2018, COVID-19 shock in 2020, war shock in Ukraine in 2022, shock of the energy crisis and inflation in 2023 and, finally, political shock of dissolution in 2024. I add this figure, revealer: during the legislative campaign, only 17 % of French people declared themselves optimistic. Again, it’s unprecedented.

Have these events left trauma?

Opinion is not angry, as it was at the time of the pension reform – another shock – with two thirds of the French who refused it, including three quarters of the assets, but it took a form of distance, withdrawal, which I call the eclipse of politics. People understand that the National Assembly is blocked. They say to themselves that this is no longer where it happens. And that the mission and promise of politics – that is to say: “In exchange for my vote, I undertake, in power, to weigh on the course of things, to transform and improve your daily life” – are emptied of their substance. What has marked them since the dissolution? In our qualitative studies, it is the vote of the budget, a little, the mazan rape trial, a societal subject and, above all, the Olympic Games, an enchanted parenthesis.

The dominant impression is inaction and a France completely stopped. With a Prime Minister, François Bayrou, who is there to last and not to endure. It is all the more striking that the world is in full swing and changing. Because, it is a new fact, the French are now interested in international issues, in what is happening in the oval office of Donald Trump in the White House, in the Ukrainian trenches or at the bottom of the Amazonian forest, with the conscience that it can have an impact on their lives.

Does the current political crisis strengthen the fractures highlighted in your latest work, Are we all talking about the same language?

The French see above all that major problems are not solved. In this book, we wanted to analyze the major fractures that cross society, as they emerge through their words and imaginations: territorial fracture between the expectations of metropolises and those of rurality; Between the national sphere, deemed disconnected and helpless, and the local sphere, perceived as more effective and close to concrete concerns; Generational fracture with two suffering age classes: 25-34 year olds, who find it difficult to fit even if unemployment has dropped and, above all, 50-64 year olds.

This generation is concerned in the first place by the pension reform, it is that which is sometimes pushed out of companies, the one that saves the least, that which, due to the extension of life expectancy, often helps its own parents. There is, overall, a negative collective imagination, that of the decline of France. The French reassure themselves by the fact that we have nuclear weapons, public services, a social model and major areas of excellence, such as gastronomy, tourism or aeronautics. But there is still the idea that the decline of the country is crystallizing on two sick institutions, the hospital and the school. And now the debt comes to invite …

In such a situation, which can still offer a collective story?

The nature hasty of the void, two actors are imposing themselves and eclipizing absent national elected officials. The first is the company. The credibility of his word progresses spectacularly, especially since it is no longer an ideologized issue. In their vast majority, the French love the local SME and consider large groups that succeed internationally. The situation has changed: we are now waiting for the company on wage inequalities, on the fight against discrimination or on health.

A recent IFOP survey showed that a out of four SME boss had organized something at the time of pink October and one in five for Movember, female and male cancers. The second actor is the local sphere. The mayors and local elected officials can materialize the promise of politics, saying: “Look, with my weak means, despite the drop in state endowment, I transformed our city. The clearing is also very low during the municipal elections. The fact remains that the French need a CAP, a projection for the country.

But how to make nation if social demands are increasingly individualized, if citizens no longer accept the common denominator of the democratic game?

Attachment to democracy is actually increasingly cowardly because of this result crisis. I’m not talking about democracy as such, but consent to our political system. The French have the feeling that the state is no longer the master, that he has lost control. On a whole series of subjects, however, and contrary to appearances, we see the points of view get closer and homogenize. Formerly the object of cleavage between the left, which wanted to increase the number of civil servants, and the right, which proclaimed its desire to reduce it, attachment to public services is today visceral. It is the heritage of those who have nothing. Any public service present on a territory is an element of vitalization, dynamics and reinsurance for the future.

The French, moreover, have an extensive vision: a bank window or a small grocery store are also in their eyes a service rendered to the public. The disappearance of these businesses is experienced as an abandonment of the State and a mark of relegation of their territory. On security, too, the old Gallic cleavage collapsed: 60 % of those questioned say that they feel safe. On the left too, this observation is in the majority. Narcotrafic, which was just a standard theme on Netflix a few years ago, became a reality. The word symbolizes the presence of a diffuse danger, in rural communes, metropolises and medium -sized cities.

On these major challenges, finally, there is a listening crisis. While the French make fairly homogeneous observations, politicians, themselves, are hung on a right-left divide perceived as exceeded. We even see it on immigration. Three quarters of people on the left say they are favorable to the expulsion of foreign delinquents at the end of their sentence, while two thirds of right people are not hostile to regularize, on a case-by-case basis, undocumented migrants in tension professions.

According to Cevipof*, 48 % of French people believe that “nothing is advancing democracy, it would take less democracy and more efficiency”.

And the idea of ​​resorting to “a strong man who does not need elections or parliament” obtains the support of 41 % of the respondents. Your analysis?

In my book, The fracture. How today’s youth is seceding: their values, their choices, their hopes …, I indicated that 38 % of young people also say that a soldier would need at the head of the country, but this answer does not mean that people dream of a general in power. These figures are a reflection of the crisis of efficiency which we were talking about above. They are the symptom of a breathless system, the ultimate avatar of which is the dissolution of 2024. On the other hand, there is the temptation to overthrow the table and test forces that have never been in power. Populist temptation is the appeal for the alternative.

Did the head of state lose the thread of his mandate?

The dissolution made Emmanuel Macron helpless. But I do not believe that his end of mandate will resemble the year of the farewells of François Mitterrand or the silence of Jacques Chirac. The fact that the international takes up so much space gives him space. People say, “He annoys me, but it’s the only one who can speak to Putin. »On the inner level, his assessment suffers from a passive on two major subjects: debt and insecurity. And his incarnation of the function remains problematic, with a quadruple criticism on the disconnected president: he does not know us, he does not listen to us, he does not understand us and, therefore, he does not like us.

How to get out of the crisis?

The French have no illusions, they have internalized that nothing will happen before the next presidential election, scheduled for 2027 and erected in totem. They await this deadline to decide the Gordian nodes on the major challenges of the country. Proof that there is always with them, despite everything, this little flame consisting in believing that politics can change things.

* Barometer of political confidence of the center of French political life of Sciences Po (Cevipof), vague 16, 2025: “The great democratic disarray”.