“It’s the first time that anxiety is so high at the beginning of a presidential mandate,” said polling firm Ifop, which conducted the survey for Dimanche Ouest France newspaper, in a statement accompanying the findings.
The French are bleaker about their country’s future than at any time since 2005, a new poll showed on Saturday, with 68 percent saying they are “rather” or “very” pessimistic, the highest level ever in the initial months of a new presidency.
The poll’s findings jibed with a survey released last weekend which found that Socialist President Francois Hollande’s approval rating had slipped to 54 percent, continuing a steady decline since he took office in May.
The level of pessimism fell just short of an all-time high of 70 percent registered in August 2005, when the poll was created near the end of Jacques Chirac’s government.
Hollande’s government has been reeling from unemployment at a 13-year high and a rash of job cuts in recent weeks at top employers like carmaker Peugeot and retailer Carrefour. The government launched a plan this week to create 150,000 state-sponsored jobs for youth.
Only 34 percent of those surveyed were confident in the government’s ability to battle unemployment, and just 20 percent expect the government to be able to improve their buying power.
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