Paradise Lost

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Ipsos’s Global Trends survey gives us a panoramic view of how 18, 000 people in 23 countries feel about the world – and their lives – today. The 400-question study includes sections on what citizens think of their governments, businesses and so-called experts.  

We can certainly find much in here to be concerned about, as well as some reasons for being more cheerful – but one of the things that immediately stands out is that countries do still matter. There may be global, overarching themes – fragmentation, cohesion and uncertainty – but each country has its own particular set of attitudes and aspirations. And, in the case of France, we see rather more fragmentation and uncertainty than we do cohesion.

France is, of course, just emerging from the bruising presidential election campaign between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, which has starkly underlined the challenges that the country faces. What our survey does, is put these pressure points ...