If we rely on the figures, an unprecedented “social explosion” should soon spice up this beginning of the year. The pension reform, presented this Tuesday, January 10, has not yet been unveiled, but the alerts of strong mobilization against it continue to flourish. The unions are all against raising the retirement age, and the French seem to be too… At least in the polls.
Survey after survey, a majority of the French people questioned are opposed to the pension reform, which must push back the legal age of departure to 64 or 65 years. On January 2, a Harris Interactive-Toluna poll for RTL reported that 54% of French people polled do not want this change. A new index of a trend already identified by previous surveys. But do these numbers mean that half of the French people could go out to parade in the streets against the pension reform? Obviously not.
Unexpected yellow vests
Polls are not a predictive tool, neither in an election nor in a social conflict. A proof ? Opinion polls were unable to predict the major social crises of the Fifth Republic: May 68, the 1995 strike, or even the crisis of the yellow vests. It would certainly be easy to rationalize the emergence of yellow vests based on polls: for example, the 80 km/h reform, announced in early January 2018, is often cited as a starting point. She was very unpopular from the start. In May 2018, a survey carried out by the BVA institute for the regional press shows that three quarters of French people (74%) say they are unfavorable to lowering the speed. But between the first communication from the executive on the subject, on January 9, the entry into force of the reform during the summer, and the first demonstration of yellow vests on November 17, there is a world.
At the same time, little in public opinion foreshadowed an explosion. At the end of October, the popularity of Emmanuel Macron was certainly not looking good (29%), but that of his Prime Minister at the time, Edouard Philippe, was far from catastrophic. At 41% of French people satisfied, it even progresses by 7 points compared to the previous month, according to the Ifop monthly barometer published in the JDD. The previous summer, the morale of the French was even in good shape, with the victory of the French at the World Cup. In the middle of July, their optimism was thus up sharply (62%), according to an Odoxa-Dentsu Consulting study for Le Figaro and Franceinfo.
But the increase in the price of fuel disrupts this good mood. At the time, however, opinion polls questioned the French very little on the subject. It is also necessary to wait until early November for a poll by Odoxa-Dentsu to show that 78% of French people support the call for the blocking of roads. Despite the strong support displayed for this first blockage, it is difficult to find a study indicating the extent of the movement to come. “The yellow vests were totally unforeseen, recalls Frédéric Micheau, deputy director general of the OpinionWay institute and author of The coronation of opinion, a history of the presidential election and the polls (Editions Cerf). The polls measure a general climate, a feeling at a given moment. Getting to know how the political debate will unfold is out of reach for them.
Rare alerts in May 68
Another example is the most famous French social movement of the Fifth Republic. In the months preceding May 1968, opinion polls and their commentators seemed to ignore the coming crisis. Alerts do filter sometimes in some studies – an Ifop survey carried out in August 1967 revealed that half of the French people questioned wanted de Gaulle to resign “as soon as possible”. But overall, the succession of polls seems positive for the executive. On March 15, an editorial by Pierre Viansson-Ponté in The world is even titled “France is bored”. “What currently characterizes our public life is boredom. The French are bored. They do not participate directly or indirectly in the great convulsions that are shaking the world,” he wrote. This discrepancy illustrates the limits of the transposition of opinion polls into reality. “The survey measures attitudes, not behaviors,” notes Frédéric Micheau. In an article from World dating from 1972, Pierre Viansson-Ponté was already saying so, four years after the events of May 1968. “Polls do not herald the revolution”, he warned in his title: “Professional pollsters […] in particular did not foresee anything of the events of May 1968, or, rather, since they refuse to ‘forecast’, did not raise the slightest indication of the discontent which was to lead to the student revolt and the workers’ strike”.
They will not see them coming much more at the end of 1995. In November, six months after the election of Jacques Chirac, France experiences a three-week paralysis. The strike against the “Juppé plan” on pensions and Social Security is approved in an unprecedented way: while, at the end of November and the beginning of December, no train or metro is running, 60% of French people say they support it. Barely four months before the start of the strike, however, the popularity of the Prime Minister is in good shape: Alain Juppé starts “with the highest percentage of satisfied people (63%) ahead of the socialists Pierre Mauroy in 1981 and Michel Rocard in 1988 “, according to an Ifop barometer for The world dating from July 25, 1995. In a few months, his popularity plummeted. “Alain Juppé thinks he will benefit from the state of grace of Chirac’s election and then ensures that he wants to stay ‘straight in his boots’, points out Frédéric Micheau. The polls clearly document the opposition of public opinion to the reforms, but do not not announce the strike”.
The “Juppé plan” is not the only series of reforms in this case. “For a few years, we have had the impression that each social return is a powder keg, almost as if this announcement were a habit”, points out Michel Pigenet, professor emeritus of contemporary history, specialist in the history of work and social movements . An observation shared by Frédéric Micheau. “It has almost become a chestnut tree, admits the pollster. But this concern for opinion polls meets media demand: what type of question do the media or requesting institutions ask when?”. Since the beginning of the century, several bills have been deemed “at risk”, a “puzzle”, or “explosive”.
Major demonstrations
Many of them have been the subject of large-scale demonstrations, such as those against the labor bill in 2016, or social movements against the pension reform of 2010, then 2019. Each of these three events has also been the subject of very pessimistic polls for the executive. In May 2010 – before part of the French take to the streets -, 62% of those questioned were ready to go and demonstrate to defend the legal retirement age of 60, according to a CSA poll for The Parisian. In 2016, again according to a survey published by The Parisian, 70% of French people questioned said they were opposed to the text of the labor code reform. In 2019, two-thirds of French people (66%) considered that the December 5 movement was “justified”, according to an Odoxa-Dentsu Consulting poll for Franceinfo and Le Figaro. However, none of these three movements is, in magnitude, as important as May 68, the strikes of 1995 or the yellow vests.
“We must distinguish the posture from the behavior. Saying that we want to demonstrate does not mean that we will necessarily go there, remarks Michel Pigenet. These figures show that a very particular climate has reigned in the country for several years. take the image of Mao Zedong, the grassland is extremely dry. We will see what spark will set it on fire.” In 2019, all it took was a man filming himself brandishing a yellow vest in the cabin of his truck. “The most important social movements are often the most unexpected,” continues the historian. A lesson all the more to be taken into account since, often, surveys alerting to the state of opinion present contradictory results. The survey conducted by Odoxa-Dentsu Consulting in 2019 indicated that, although supporting the strike movement, the same number of French people were in favor of an alignment of pension schemes, and therefore the end of special schemes.
Draw the issues with social networks
“The poll always lags behind the state of opinion at the time of its publication, and the moment it was carried out, continues the specialist. With the Internet, we manage to publish the results within a period of very short time after the survey has been completed. But that can’t be everything”. To achieve a better definition of the issues around social questions, some intend to add new tools to opinion polls. “Analyzing social networks makes it possible to make a prediction of the evolution of the different actors in each community, notes Bruno Breton, CEO of Bloom, a start-up dedicated to “qualitative, predictive and strategic analysis” of social networks. This is of course not an absolute truth, but it indicates the evolution of the influence of each one, to make the difference between the organic movements, and those pushed by very specific opinion leaders”.
The leader, for example, makes the difference between the yellow vests and the “Freedom Convoys” movement in France which, in February 2022, intended to protest against the vaccination obligation linked to Covid-19. “Originally, the yellow vests were a movement of individual accounts, with often different claims, which ended up being aggregated. It was a collective restructuring, without an opinion leader, he analyzes. Conversely, in France, the Freedom Convoys were driven from the start by large foreign accounts, with a large number of subscribers and a very specific agenda.The impression of mass protest created by their audience n was ultimately just that: an impression”. For the entrepreneur, combining analysis of social networks and surveys would make it possible to better discern the evolution of social protests. And maybe finally identify the spark?