Should Le Pen's Popularity Come as a Surprise?

Washington, D.C. - Jean-Marie Le Pen's strong showing in the first round of the French presidential election has been a jolt to the political establishments in France and abroad. Ipsos Global Express quarterly world polls show that Le Pen's extreme right platform calling for drastic law and order measures coincided with a surge in French public fears about criminal violence and personal safety. Ipsos polling in Germany and the U.K. show no similar rise in concerns about crime and personal safety, and that suggests there is no basis in public opinion for a development of a Le Pen-like candidate in those countries.

When French citizens were polled by international research firm Ipsos over a year ago, in November of 2000, fewer than 1-in-10 (8%) voiced any concern about street crime or the shortcomings of the criminal justice system. Not unlike many of their European neighbors, the most frequently mentioned concerns at the time involved the French healthcare system (36%) and the employment situation in France (16%).

A year later, the same question draws a drastically different response - mentions of criminal violence jump to the top of the list, cited by 28% of respondents from France as the issue that needs the greatest attention from their country's leaders. (To put that in context, residents of major Latin American cities mention crime at about the same levels: 30% in urban Colombia and 26% in urban Mexico). Another 15% of French respondents expressed a more general fear about their personal safety in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Between urban crime and the disquieting thought of terrorist cells in their midst, more than 2-in-5 French citizens are in a mood where the fabric of law and order seems to unravel a bit more with every purse snatching and graffiti marking, suggested Thom Riehle, President of Washington, D.C.-based Ipsos Public Affairs, in his analysis of the findings.

Should Any of This Be a Surprise?

Among France's European neighbors, concern about crime and personal safety fails to reach such a fever pitch of indignation. Crime and justice draw only 3% of mentions in the United Kingdom and 2% in Germany in the last Ipsos world poll that asked this question, late last year. In France, 28% mentioned crime and 15% personal safety.

Concerns About Crime Have Surged In France Source: Ipsos Global Express, Q4 2001

What Happened Election Night?

Boosted by a low voter turnout, Le Pen stunned France by edging out Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to face Jacques Chirac in the runoff. Le Pen won 16.9 percent of the first round vote to Chirac's 19.9 percent. See Top Reasons for voting Le Pen

On the eve of this Sunday's presidential runoff, opinion polls say the conservative incumbent could win by a landslide. A new Ipsos poll, conducted in the last week, gives Chirac between 74% and 81% of the presidential vote.

In France, 27.4% of the 41 million people registered to vote failed to vote for a candidate during the first round of voting, many more than the 21.6% who abstained in the first round of 1995's presidential election. Young voters were particularly loath to cast ballots. An estimated 37% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 and 36% of those between the ages of 25 and 34 didn't vote. "That's unprecedented," said Pierre Giacometti, President of Ipsos France. "It illustrates the rejection and indifference that many French people feel."

"We see the results from the first round as a reprimand to both the right and the left," Giacometti added. "Still, 82% of those who voted for Le Pen in 1995 voted for him again this year, compared with only 50% for Jospin and Chirac. And while the anti-immigration sentiment has been the core of his support, the anxiety about crime appears to be the bridge he's seized upon to move into the mainstream." For the latest polling and analysis from Ipsos in France, visit www.ipsos.fr

The Ipsos Global Express Research Methodology These international survey research data were collected via the Ipsos Global Express, a quarterly international omnibus survey. Fieldwork was conducted between November 19 and December 17, 2001. Data are based on individual surveys taken with a random sampling of adults (18+) across 20 countries. The target sample size in each country was 500, except for the United States where 1,000 interviews were conducted. Within each country, the survey results can be said to be within 177 4.5 percentage points of what they would have been had the entire adult population been surveyed; 177 3.1 percentage points in the United States. In 13 of these 20 surveyed countries, the samples provide full national sample coverage, while the remainder provide quasi-national representative samples of selected urban and rural areas or an urban-only sample of key cities. For all national samples, the data were collected via randomized telephone interviewing, with the one exception of Poland where in-person door-to-door interviewing was used. Door-to-door interviewing was also used in the quasi-national samples in Argentina and Turkey, as well as the urban-only samples in Brazil, China, Colombia, Mexico and South Africa where the sample coverage was limited to the largest cities.

The Ipsos Global Express is an omnibus survey that runs in up to 50 countries every quarter. It ensures methodological and sampling consistency across markets allowing for valid country-by-country comparisons. For further information on the survey methodology used for Ipsos's Global Express polling program, please contact Rob Breitkreuz, Global Express Director.

About Ipsos Public Affairs Ipsos has been tracking public opinion around the world for more than 20 years and has become a leading provider of global public opinion and marketing research to private, public and not for profit organizations in over 50 countries. It is best known for its line of Express opinion polls, the World Monitor public affairs journal, and The Face of the Web, the most comprehensive study of global Internet usage and trends. Ipsos Public Affairs is a member of Paris-based Ipsos Group, ranked among the top ten research groups in the world.

For more information, please contact:

Thomas Riehle President Ipsos Public Affairs 202.463.7300 [email protected]