François Hollande’s handling of the Paris terror attacks has given him a modest boost in the polls, though a majority of French remain dissatisfied with his running of the country.
The president’s popularity rose by several percentage points after the wave of bombings and shootings in Paris on Friday 13 November, which left 130 people dead. The prime minister, Manuel Valls, has also improved in the ratings.
The figures from various polls show that just before the attacks, Hollande and Valls’s popularity was on a downward curve. Immediately afterwards, Hollande gained between seven and eight points, giving him an approval rating of between 27% and 33%. Valls’s approval rating rose to 40%.
The attacks have tested Hollande’s leadership for the second time this year. In January after gunman killed 17 people in a three-day spree of violence including at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, Hollande’s ratings jumped 21 points to 40%, according to the pollster Ifop, and Valls’s rating jumped 17 points to 61%.
Critics accuse the president of failing to get to grips with France’s high unemployment, social problems and stagnant economy. A week before this month’s attacks, a survey by TNS Sofres for the centre-right Le Figaro magazine found 15% of respondents approved of Hollande’s performance, and 82% said they had no confidence in him to fix France’s problems.
In September 2014 Hollande’s approval rating was even lower at 13%, making him the least popular French leader in modern times. The next presidential election is due in 2017.
On Saturday the economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, who is gaining a reputation for refusing to follow the Socialist government’s line, said French society was “partly responsible” for the lack of mobility, discrimination and unemployment that created “fertile ground on which the terrorists feed”.
He said: “I’m not saying that these elements are the main cause of jihadism – that is down to the madness of men, and the totalitarian and manipulating spirit of certain people. But there is fertile ground, and that is our responsibility.”
