President Emmanuel Macron's approval rating fell sharply in the past month as French voters were either confused by plans for the tax system, shocked by a dispute with the head of the army or unsettled by upcoming labor laws reform, an Ifop pollster told Journal du Dimanche.
The rating for Macron, elected in early May, fell 10 percentage points to 54 percent this month, the second-biggest decline for a French president so soon after election. Jacques Chirac dropped 15 points from his May 1995 election to July, the Paris-based pollster said.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe's approval rating also fell, by eight points to 56 percent. The survey for JDD was conducted by phone and online July 17-22 among 1,947 respondents; no margin of error was given.
"Macron's entry in the atmosphere is brutal, he's facing the brunt of several sectors in society," Jerome Fourquet, the head of Ifop opinion polls, told Journal du Dimanche. Fourquet said a tax increase that will hit retirees, new measures that that will curtail civil servants' advantages and his demonstrations of "authoritarian style" in some cases were among reasons cited by those surveyed. "Some of those polled were openly criticizing a presidency based on communication," he added.
