Poll: Macron now France’s least popular president in 50 years

A new survey reveals that Emmanuel Macron has become France's least popular president in over half a century.

The Verian Group survey, published in the daily Le Figaro on Thursday, shows that only 11% of the French public approve of the 47-year-old president, placing him alongside former Socialist president François Hollande at his record low in late 2016.

The poll also indicates that 70% of the French population wants Macron to resign before the end of his second and final term in 2027.

According to Verian’s assessment, Macron and Hollande now share the title of France’s least popular president since the early 1970s.

Macron’s approval rating has plummeted to the lowest level for any French president since France adopted the constitution of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

The current French president shares an unwelcome record with his predecessor, Hollande, who played a pivotal role in launching Macron's political career.

The previous low approval rating recorded in the same poll before the Macron-Hollande dip was held by Jacques Chirac, who reached 16% in July 2006 at the end of his second and final term.

Eddy Vautrin-Dumaine, head of public surveys and opinion polls at Verian, concluded that “Emmanuel Macron is undoubtedly the least popular president of the Fifth Republic.”

In addition to political fatigue after eight years in power, Vautrin-Dumaine attributed the main source of disapproval to Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament and call snap elections in July last year, which led to political deadlock, a hung parliament, and a budget-less France."

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Other polling institutes have reached similar conclusions about Macron’s slump following his unpopular decision to raise the retirement age and the months of political deadlock triggered by his decision to dissolve parliament following a far-right triumph in the 2024 European election.

The recent ire toward French heads of state appears to be a historical anomaly, at least recently.

 Studies on approval ratings show the first three elected presidents of France’s Fifth Republic, which was founded in 1958, consistently polling at higher levels.

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Nationwide anti-government demonstrators across France set streets ablaze, saying the political system was no longer fit for purpose.

Europeans’ growing pessimism over their leadership

While Macron’s numbers are particularly bad, Europeans’ pessimism over their leadership appears to be on the up.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating lies slightly below 20 percent, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls aggregator, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently hit a low of 25 percent, according to a Forsa Institute poll for RTL and ntv released on Tuesday.

Europeans in recent months have also felt 'humiliated' by US President Donald Trump's behavior towards their leader. 

In February, Keir Starmer wooed Trump with an invitation to visit Britain as a guest of his majesty the King. The prime minister was rewarded with relative leniency under the White House’s punitive tariff regime. 

The Europeans are also frustrated by their governments' unconditional support for the Israeli regime's genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip. 

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