35% of French people say they believe in conspiracy theories, according to a recent Ifop poll. Those related to the climate are more and more common in France, according to the director of the Observatory of conspiracy.
More than a third of the French population say they “believe in conspiracy theories”, according to an Ifop poll conducted in January 2023*. At the microphone of franceinfo, Rudy Reichstadt, director of the observatory of conspiracy and the website Conspiracy Watchreviews the three most popular conspiracy theories in France.
Before revealing this ranking, Rudy Reichstadt insisted that conspiracy theories “are very heterogeneous” and that in general they are subject “to rather cyclical ebb and flow effects”. To understand for example, that they follow one another according to public figures and current events which are dominant on the media scene. For example, when Joe Biden takes the place of Donald Trump as President of the United States, other theories emerge.
But one of the common points of these theories is that they are often “a critique of power”, notes the founder of Conspiracy Watch, with “a speech of accusation which tends to dispense with proof to affirm things”.
Covid-19, war in Ukraine and climate skepticism
According to Rudy Reichstadt, three conspiracy theories emerge in France. The first, after two years of pandemic, of course relates to health policies and especially to Covid-19. “Basically, it’s the idea that vaccines are very dangerous, even deadly, especially messenger RNA vaccines with scary technology, etc. It generates a conspiratorial footprint on the web which is very important”.
Another very popular conspiracy theory in France, the war in Ukraine, which would be “a manipulation”, summarizes Rudy Reichstadt. “And not a manipulation of the Russians, but a Western, Atlanticist, American, Ukrainian manipulation to be able to basically start World War III.” This is the main subject, but many discussions serve to support this discourse, “with the events of Boutcha or in Mariupol… or that Russia was surrounded and that it had no choice but to attack. We are really in a discourse that takes up the Kremlin’s propaganda. “
“The third subject that has really emerged and it’s very interesting is climato-conspiracy”, emphasizes Rudy Reichstadt. “Very clearly, we saw accounts that were Covid-skeptical, then ‘poutinophiles’ that migrated to the climate issue. An asserted climate-skepticism with a conspiratorial tendency.”
>> From social networks to politics, the strategies of climate conspiracy
Example on March 3, 2023 on CNews, in the program “L’heure des Pros”, with “an author who describes himself as a climato-realist but who has released a climato-skeptical book, and who said very calmly that it is the German party of the Greens which dictates to the IPCC what it must write, what it must say”, remembers Rudy Reichstadt. A television episode which aroused great annoyance in Laurent Joffrin, former director of Release.
The survey conducted by Ifop will be ‘very useful in the future’ to measure the evolution of climate conspiracy, says Rudy Reichstadt. “We see a digital footprint on social networks rising on this. However, we have been talking about climate-septicism for years. Claude Allègre, it was in the early 2000s. But today, we see structured conspiratorial communities that take up this theme”.
Activism in the face of an anxiety-provoking reality
And that’s not counting the “new world order” linked to the deep state widely mentioned by Donald Trump, child crime, the myth of adrenochrome…
The conspiratorial spheres act, activate to counter a very anxiety-provoking reality, and global warming is a perfect subject for this, recalls Rudy Reichstadt: “Fleeing this reality by saying ‘finally we are not even sure that it exists. And if it does exist, it is not said at all that we can do anything to prevent it, the slow it down, stop it. Because in the end, we’re not even sure if it’s of anthropogenic origin. In a way, it’s quite reassuring, it’s consolatory. Conspiracy theory is used for that It serves to liberate you, to give you a clear conscience”.
In conclusion, Rudy Reichstadt reminds us that we can neither make generalizations about conspiracy theories, nor about the people who adhere to them. Since it depends each time on the country concerned, its history, its geography and the media treatment exercised.
*This study was conducted by IFOP for Amb-usa.fr from January 26 to 27, 2023. A self-administered online questionnaire was carried out with a sample of 1,018 people representative of the French population aged 18 years and over, adjusted on socio-demographic, political and religious criteria.