France Becoming Increasingly Euroskeptic: Poll Shows 52% of Workers Want to Leave the Euro, Only 34% of Workers Believe EU is a Good Thing

The following bullet points are from the French Ipsos Poll: New French fractures, results and analysis of the Ipsos/Steria.

Although a huge majority of French want to stay on the Euro, a majority of "workers" don't.

Poll Conclusions

• 79% distrust the outside world
• 72% have no confidence in the French National Assembly
• 74% think journalists do not write about the real problems
• 66% think there are too many foreigners in France
• 63% say Islam is not compatible with values of French society
• 84% think politicians act for personal reasons
• 70% Want strengthening of national power away from EU (up 5 percentage points from last poll)
• 33% want to exit the euro (up 5 percentage points)
• 52% of workers want to exit the euro (up 8 percentage points)
• 45% think membership in the EU is a good thing, 40% think it's bad
• 34% of workers think membership in the EU is a good thing 

Kevin O'rourke on the Irish Economy blog comments Class divides and European Integration, Yet Again.

This morning’s Eurointelligence briefing put me on to this article in Les Echos, which in turn led me to this Ipsos opinion poll. It contains several sobering findings, notably with respect to foreigners. But the finding that struck me most — since this is something I have been writing about for years now — is that a majority of French working class voters now want to leave the Euro. Indeed, only 34% of French workers think that EU membership is a good thing. 

Isn’t it amazing how short run blips in various economic indicators can lead powerful people to assume that all is well with the EMU project? It is slow moving variables — long term unemployment, gradual shifts in public opinion, and so on — that pose the greatest threat to the Euro’s survival. If the far right does as well as people now seem to think it will in the European elections, this will presumably be presented in the media as a “shock” to the system, but has it not been obvious since 2010 at the latest that something like this was likely, given Eurozone macroeconomic policies? And has it not been obvious for years that actually existing EMU is harming the broader European project?

Europe’s political leaders should remember what Ernest Hemingway said about bankruptcy.

Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Sun Also Rises’

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

Painful Choice

In case you missed it, please see Stiglitz: Leaving the Euro Painful but Staying in More Painful; Eurozone Breakup Recap.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com