Young people and war : a renewed patriotism ?

How do French people aged 18 to 25 per­ceive war and the army ? Would they be rea­dy to enlist in the event of a major conflict invol­ving France ? Anne Muxel ans­wers these ques­tions, dra­wing in par­ti­cu­lar on the stu­dy “Les jeunes et la guerre, repré­sen­ta­tions et dis­po­si­tions à l’engagement [Young people and war : repre­sen­ta­tions and willin­gness to enlist]” publi­shed in April 2024¹, which she conduc­ted bet­ween Februa­ry and Decem­ber 2023 at IRSEM at the request of the Centre d’études stra­té­giques aéro­spa­tiales (CESA/Armée de l’air et de l’espace).

Anne Muxel. For them it is some­thing that is both abs­tract and yet nar­row­ly defi­ned. This gene­ra­tion has not expe­rien­ced any per­iods of war on French soil, but their clo­se­ness to the mili­ta­ry world is pal­pable : 52% say they are inter­es­ted in mili­ta­ry mat­ters, and 15% say they are very inter­es­ted. Various inter­me­dia­ries enable them to deve­lop a good know­ledge of the army and of war – fami­ly trans­mis­sion of war memo­ries, the wider envi­ron­ment when it includes mili­ta­ry per­son­nel, school know­ledge, cur­rent events, but also films, TV series and video games that depict war in a some­times very rea­lis­tic way. Conspi­ra­cy theo­ries, to which a third of young people sub­scribe, also exert a real, if less expli­cit, influence. These theo­ries main­tain a conflic­tual view of the world, and this view, even if based on dis­tor­ted rea­so­ning, seems to encou­rage a large mino­ri­ty of young people to become more curious about armed conflict. Para­doxi­cal­ly, it gives them a cer­tain luci­di­ty about the mili­ta­ry world.

In their eyes, the mili­ta­ry ins­ti­tu­tion clear­ly embo­dies seve­ral posi­tive values : com­mit­ment, cou­rage, and pro­tec­tion. The IRSEM stu­dy “Obser­va­toire de la géné­ra­tion Z” publi­shed in 2021² shows that 82% of young people – though this is also true of the gene­ral popu­la­tion – have confi­dence in the army, at a time when there is a gene­ral cri­sis of confi­dence in ins­ti­tu­tions : 80%, for example, express dis­trust of poli­ti­cal par­ties, 60% of the govern­ment and 42% of the police. The anti-mili­ta­rism that pre­vai­led among the youn­ger gene­ra­tions from the 1970s to the 1990s, par­ti­cu­lar­ly among young lef­tists, has clear­ly disap­pea­red. From this point of view, the end of com­pul­so­ry mili­ta­ry ser­vice in 1997 mar­ked a real tur­ning point. But other fac­tors have streng­the­ned the cre­di­bi­li­ty of the armed forces, such as their invol­ve­ment in the face of ter­ro­rism, or their inter­ven­tions in the huma­ni­ta­rian field and during the COVID-19 health cri­sis. Today, 98% of young people consi­der the army to be use­ful (ver­sus 78% in 1998). 62% of them also think that the intro­duc­tion of a new com­pul­so­ry mili­ta­ry ser­vice would be a good thing.

It’s not absent from their minds, even if it only ran­ked 6^th out of their concerns, far behind glo­bal war­ming – which a large majo­ri­ty asso­ciate with an increa­sed risk of war in the world. Most young people believe that war is like­ly in the coming years, and almost half of them believe it is pos­sible on French soil. Wor­ryin­gly, 6 out of 10 young people believe that a civil war could break out in France. This figure shows that they are acu­te­ly aware of frac­tures within our socie­ty. They have also taken on board the nuclear threat : 69% of them fear it, inclu­ding 27% who say they are very wor­ried. When asked what forms of aggres­sion France could be sub­jec­ted to, ter­ro­rism and nuclear attack come out on top.

It’s true : the Second World War is still the main frame of refe­rence for them. Their por­trayal of war thus evokes very conven­tio­nal forms of conflict bet­ween nation-states, fea­tu­ring ground bat­tles, tanks, deaths and the anni­hi­la­tion of cities, and the images conveyed by the media of the wars in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip rein­force this idea. Their vision of war is one of des­truc­tion and death. It is stri­king to note, for example, that very few of them believe in “zero death” wars. At the same time, through fic­tion and science fic­tion, they have taken on board the threats posed by new thea­ters of ope­ra­tion, such as cyber-space, but they don’t seem to regard them as wars per se.

Yes, young people say they want to play their part in defen­ding their coun­try and pro­tec­ting civi­lians. 57% of them say they would be pre­pa­red to join the army if France were invol­ved in a conflict, and 63% would fight as civi­lians if the coun­try were atta­cked. Just under half even say they would be pre­pa­red to sign up to defend a coun­try other than their own, like the young people who left to fight in Ukraine.

Natu­ral­ly, these ave­rages conceal diver­si­ty. The gen­der divide is still a major fac­tor : young women are still less incli­ned than young men to sign up for mili­ta­ry ser­vice, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the context of war (46% of young women say they are pre­pa­red to do so, com­pa­red with 70% of men). But 46% is alrea­dy a signi­fi­cant pro­por­tion ! This rela­ti­ve­ly recent deve­lop­ment among women is in line with the real increase in the num­ber of women in the French armed forces, which is one of the highest in the world.

The poli­ti­cal-ideo­lo­gi­cal divide also still exists, but it has become much more dilu­ted, par­ti­cu­lar­ly with the disap­pea­rance of anti-mili­ta­rism. So the tra­di­tio­nal clea­vages are still there, but they are smoo­thed out by a strong desire for enga­ge­ment, com­mon to all social and gen­der cate­go­ries and all poli­ti­cal persuasions.

No, because I’ve shown in other stu­dies that a willin­gness to get invol­ved is cha­rac­te­ris­tic of this gene­ra­tion. Contra­ry to popu­lar belief, they are not just tur­ned in on their pri­vate inter­ests and indif­ferent to public affairs. Recent sur­veys have shown that they are even more invol­ved than older people, for example in envi­ron­men­tal causes or in self-help net­works. These young people are the bea­rers of ideals that they want to see put into prac­tice : free­dom, jus­tice, atten­tion to human rights, but also order and secu­ri­ty. We often hear it said that they need direc­tion ; I would say more pre­ci­se­ly that they need a direc­tion for the future. They lack a nar­ra­tive for the future, both in envi­ron­men­tal terms and in terms of a vision for socie­ty. Invol­ve­ment remains a land­mark that makes sense in the way they see citi­zen­ship and their use­ful­ness in society.

Anne Orliac

To find out more :

• CEVIPOF ‘poli­ti­cal confi­dence’ baro­me­ters : https://​www​.scien​ces​po​.fr/​c​e​v​i​p​o​f​/​f​r​/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​l​e​-​b​a​r​o​m​e​t​r​e​-​d​e​-​l​a​-​c​o​n​f​i​a​n​c​e​-​p​o​l​i​t​i​q​u​e​.html

• Anne Muxel, Flo­rian Opillard and Angé­lique Palle, L’ar­mée, les Fran­çais et la crise sani­taire. Une enquête inédite [The army, the French and the health cri­sis. An unpu­bli­shed sur­vey], Étude 95, IRSEM, June 2022 : https://www.irsem.fr/media/5‑publications/etude-irsem-95-anr.pdf