Is Emmanuel Macron more unpopular than his predecessors?

The sounds of saucepans resonate in the streets, and the rating of the President of the Republic continues to decline. Weighed down by opposition to pension reform, Emmanuel Macron’s popularity has plummeted since his re-election in May 2022: – 15 points in almost a year in the Ifop index for The Sunday newspaper published Monday, April 24, as in that of Kantar Public-Epoka for Le Figaro magazine, -14.5 points in the last delivery of the Ipsos barometer-Point. The head of state is going through his biggest crisis of confidence since the movement of “yellow vests” in 2018. This tumble is also one of the most marked for a president in place, since the first term of Jacques Chirac in 1995.

According to the results of the Ipsos barometerPoint, the president is now down to 27% of favorable opinions. A level that he had not reached since December 2019. Emmanuel Macron had then fallen to 29%, in full protest against his first pension reform, which was finally abandoned due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, he remains above the threshold of unpopularity he had reached during the movement of “yellow vests”. Emmanuel Macron’s confidence rating had plummeted to 20% in December 2018.

Chirac and Hollande did worse

How does Emmanuel Macron’s unpopularity compare to his predecessors? In this month of April, the president is doing less well than Nicolas Sarkozy’s worst score under his five-year term (29% in April 2011). The president’s rating is also lower than the levels reached by Jacques Chirac at the end of his second term (28% in June 2005 after the no vote in the referendum for a European Constitution, 29% after the demonstrations against the first job contract in April 2006).

However, Emmanuel Macron’s fall in popularity remains less strong than that of Jacques Chirac in the fall of 1995, in the midst of the challenge to the Juppé plan. His trust rating had then collapsed to 14% in October 1995.

Emmanuel Macron also remains very far from the unpopularity record won by François Hollande. With 13% favorable opinions in September 2014, the socialist had become the most unpopular president in the history of the Fifth Republic. A finding shared by all polling institutes.