Poll: 65% of the French think we need to slow down innovation in the face of climate change

This art­icle is the second epis­ode of a two-part sur­vey con­duc­ted with Ifop in August 2022. Click here to down­load the results.

When asked about the place cur­rently occu­pied by sci­ence in the major debates in soci­ety¹, most French people (56%) con­sider that it is “not giv­en enough space”; while 38% con­sider that it has neither too much nor too little space. Only 6% of the French con­sider that sci­ence takes up too much space in these debates. In this respect, pub­lic opin­ion on this issue remains abso­lutely unchanged com­pared to 2018, i.e. before the pandemic.

How­ever, 82% of French people believe that poli­cy­makers should rely more on sci­ent­ists and inde­pend­ent health agen­cies to inform their decisions, includ­ing 20% who strongly agree with this state­ment. This score, although high, shows a not­able drop of ‑5 points com­pared to 2018, which per­haps reflects the effects of Cov­id, where we have seen pub­lic author­it­ies adapt their, some­times-unpop­u­lar, decisions accord­ing to the opin­ion of the sci­entif­ic council.

While more than 7 out of 10 French people con­sider that polit­ic­al pro­grammes should be based more on sci­entif­ic stud­ies (75%, with 15% strongly agree­ing with this state­ment), only 33% con­sider that cur­rent polit­ic­al pro­grammes are based on sci­entif­ic stud­ies and 39% con­sider that sci­ence is suf­fi­ciently present in pub­lic debate. 

This dis­par­ity between the atti­tude of the French pub­lic and the real­ity of cur­rent polit­ic­al action in rela­tion to sci­ence is countered by a strong con­cern about the instru­ment­al­isa­tion of sci­ence in the pub­lic debate. 73% of the French pub­lic agree with the idea that “sci­ence is being instru­ment­al­ised in the pub­lic debate”, includ­ing 14% who are com­pletely con­vinced of this.

More spe­cific­ally, 25–34-year-olds and employ­ees below man­age­ment level are once again dis­pro­por­tion­ately rep­res­en­ted (78% and 81% respect­ively), as are 50–64-year-olds (84%). Here again, the health crisis and the polit­ic­al decisions, which are some­times con­sidered author­it­ari­an regard­ing travel restric­tions, the oblig­a­tion to wear a mask, com­puls­ory vac­cin­a­tion, etc., in an attempt to curb the epi­dem­ic, may have con­trib­uted to this statement.

For the French, the con­tri­bu­tions of sci­ence are undeni­able, although there is a sig­ni­fic­ant mis­trust of the related issue of tech­nic­al progress.

Gen­er­ally speak­ing, 40% of the French feel that sci­ence brings more good than harm to human­ity, and 45% con­sider that it brings as much good as harm. On the oth­er hand, 15% feel that sci­ence brings more harm than good, and this pro­por­tion has increased sig­ni­fic­antly since the 1980s (4% in 1989 and 6% in 1982). While there are few dif­fer­ences between cer­tain cat­egor­ies of the pop­u­la­tion in terms of the per­cep­tion that sci­ence brings “more harm than good”, there are sev­er­al cleav­ages among those who feel that it brings “more good”: men (46%), res­id­ents of Île-de-France (47%), high­er edu­ca­tion gradu­ates (63%), sup­port­ers of the left (49%), LREM (La Répub­lique en Marche!)(54%) or LR (Les Républicains)(65%) are more likely to recog­nise the bene­fi­cial con­tri­bu­tion of sci­ence to human­ity, While women (35%), people liv­ing in the provinces (39%), non-gradu­ates (29%), RN sup­port­ers (35%) and those with no party affil­i­ation (28%) are under-represented.

In addi­tion to the fear of the instru­ment­al­isa­tion of sci­ence referred to above, the French show a cer­tain mis­trust of tech­nic­al pro­gress, which they strongly asso­ci­ate with sci­ence: 86% state that the pur­pose of sci­ence is to enable tech­nic­al progress.

This dis­trust is in line with the dis­trust of pub­lic author­it­ies – and there­fore with the idea of the instru­ment­al­isa­tion of sci­ence – inso­far as 6 out of 10 French people say that tech­nic­al pro­gress serves above all to increase the power of those who gov­ern. This score is up by 17 points in com­par­is­on with 1989.

The asso­ci­ation between tech­nic­al pro­gress and unem­ploy­ment also remains high among the French even though it is lower com­pared to 1989 and the start of dein­dus­tri­al­isa­tion: 55% con­sider that tech­nic­al pro­gress increases unem­ploy­ment, com­pared to 77% in 1989, i.e. 22 points less. Here again, women, who are more affected by unem­ploy­ment and have great­er job insec­ur­ity, are dis­pro­por­tion­ately rep­res­en­ted (59% com­pared to 49% of men). Con­versely, anoth­er major­ity of French people (53%) con­sider that in the long-term tech­nic­al pro­gress cre­ates more jobs than it elim­in­ates (+8 points com­pared to 1989), and this idea is more strongly defen­ded by men (61% com­pared to 45% of women) and by people liv­ing in the Île-de-France region (63% com­pared to 50% of people liv­ing in the provinces).

The French trust sci­ence when it comes to prov­ing the harm­ful effects of a product or tech­no­logy, but the oppos­ite is not always true.

Indeed, GM crops receive the low­est approv­al rat­ing (19%, of which only 3% are com­pletely in favour) and are also per­ceived as products whose harm­ful­ness has been sci­en­tific­ally proven by a rel­at­ive major­ity of French people (44%), with only 8% men­tion­ing sci­en­tific­ally proven bene­fits, 4% who believe that there is no sci­en­tific­ally proven risk, 21% who believe that neither the harm­ful­ness nor the bene­fits have been sci­en­tific­ally proven, and the remain­ing 23% who have no opinion.

Next comes 5G, for which opin­ions are divided in terms of use: a slight major­ity (58%) are in favour, while 42% are against, includ­ing 13% who are totally against. Opin­ions on its harm­ful­ness are also divided: 19% con­sider it sci­en­tific­ally proven, com­pared with 16% who con­sider that its bene­fits or lack of harm­ful­ness are sci­en­tific­ally proven, while the major­ity of respond­ents either con­sider that neither is proven (34%) or do not know (31%).

Nuc­le­ar energy has a rel­at­ively high accept­ance rate (64%), even though 31% con­sider that it is sci­en­tific­ally proven to be harm­ful. How­ever, here the prin­ciple of neces­sity seems to be at work. Thus, while only 8% defend the idea that the absence of risk is sci­en­tific­ally proven, 19% men­tion sci­en­tific­ally proven bene­fits (prob­ably the use of a decar­bon­ised energy). How­ever, 19% con­sider that neither is proven and 23% do not know.

Finally, the Cov­id-19 vac­cine and homeo­pathy have very high accept­ance rates (63% and 83% respect­ively, of which 28% and 34% are very favour­able) and this should be seen in the light of a benefit/risk bal­ance in favour of sci­en­tific­ally proven benefits.

Nuc­le­ar energy has a rel­at­ively high accept­ance rate (64%), even though 31% con­sider that it is sci­en­tific­ally proven to be harm­ful. How­ever, here the prin­ciple of neces­sity seems to be at work. Thus, while only 8% defend the idea that the absence of risk is sci­en­tific­ally proven, 19% men­tion sci­en­tific­ally proven bene­fits (prob­ably the use of a decar­bon­ised energy). How­ever, 19% con­sider that neither is proven and 23% do not know.

Finally, the Cov­id-19 vac­cine and homeo­pathy have very high accept­ance rates (63% and 83% respect­ively, of which 28% and 34% are very favour­able) and this should be seen in the light of a benefit/risk bal­ance in favour of sci­en­tific­ally proven benefits.

These factors tend to prove that the French have con­fid­ence in sci­ence when it comes to prov­ing the harm­ful­ness of a product or tech­no­logy. But in the absence of a strong con­sensus, their atti­tude dif­fers, depend­ing on their socioeco­nom­ic status and level of know­ledge, but also, and primar­ily, accord­ing to gender. Indeed, women are largely dis­pro­por­tion­ately rep­res­en­ted among those who are in favour of using homeo­pathy (+6 points com­pared to men and +12 points among those who are very much in favour of its use), while they are less numer­ous to declare them­selves in favour of the use of nuc­le­ar power (-17 points com­pared to men), vac­cines (-18 points) or 5G (-16 points).

As both the source of the prob­lem and the vec­tor of the solu­tion, sci­ence in the 21st cen­tury must address the major chal­lenge of the climate.

As we have seen, the French have great con­fid­ence in sci­ence, and this is reflec­ted in the envir­on­ment­al field by the widely shared belief that sci­entif­ic stud­ies make it pos­sible to cor­rectly assess the impact of human activ­ity on cli­mate change (81% agree with this pro­pos­i­tion, includ­ing 18% who strongly agree). They there­fore believe that sci­ence can accur­ately meas­ure the extent of the problem.

How­ever, 84% also share the view that “sci­ence has no right to do cer­tain things because it would alter nature too much”, thus shar­ing the Rabelaisi­an adage “sci­ence without con­science is but the ruin of the soul”. This opin­ion – with which 28% com­pletely agree –  is up by 2 points com­pared to 1989, and is mainly held by left-wing sym­path­isers (90%), who are more sens­it­ive to cli­mate issues, and by the most highly edu­cated (86%). In this way, the French place a lim­it on sci­ence, very prob­ably in con­nec­tion with their envir­on­ment­al con­cerns. It is there­fore not sur­pris­ing that after the scorch­ing sum­mer of 2022, marked by heat waves, fires, and viol­ent storms, and marked by the afore­men­tioned mis­trust of tech­nic­al pro­gress, two out of three French people (65%) say that human­ity will only over­come glob­al warm­ing if it slows down the pace of innov­a­tion and moves towards sobri­ety and “soft” or “low tech” technologies.

In con­trast, only one third of French people (35%) are con­vinced that tech­nic­al pro­gress will make it pos­sible to over­come glob­al warm­ing while pre­serving the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem and the quest for growth.

Gen­er­ally speak­ing, the sup­port­ers of sobri­ety include sev­er­al types of pro­file: on the one hand, women (73% vs. 57% of men) who, as we have seen, are more crit­ic­al of sci­ence and tech­nic­al pro­gress, and over­all, French people with a poor image of sci­ence (71%), but also left-wing sym­path­isers (70%) and in par­tic­u­lar EELV (“Europe Eco­lo­gie Les Verts” – The Green Party) (75%).