A new opinion survey has revealed that nearly 7 in 10 French citizens are in favor of the government restricting the right to seek asylum in France, even if new restrictions mean no longer adhering to rules at the EU and international levels.
The poll, carried out by the market research firm CSA Institute for French news outlet CNEWS, whose results were published Thursday, June 15th—in the wake of a grisly incident that saw a failed Syrian asylum seeker stab six people, including four children, at a park in France—revealed that 66% of French people want to see the right to asylum restricted in their country.
While 66% of both male and female respondents said yes to the question: “Should France restrict the right of asylum,” opinions were more varied among different age cohorts, with 39% of 25-34 year-olds holding the view that the right to asylum ought not to be restricted. At the same time, the greatest support for restricting asylum was found among respondents aged 65 and over, with 70% backing the idea.
As one might expect, differing opinions on the matter were observed between France’s right-of-center and left-liberal voters. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, voters on the Left were more likely than those on the Right to hold the opinion that the right to asylum ought not to be restricted.
Overall, 56% of survey respondents who identified with the political Left were against restricting the right to asylum, with that number jumping to 76% among supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI). Conversely, 51% of supporters of the Socialist Party took the opposing viewpoint, answering yes to the question: “Should France restrict the right of asylum?”
Among Macron supporters, opinions were reflective of the poll’s overall results, with 63% supporting more restrictive asylum measures and 37% opposing them. On the Right, support for increased restrictions on the right to asylum was by far the highest, at 89% overall. Among supporters of Zemmour’s Reconquête, that figure climbed to 100%, while 95% and 89% of supporters of Rassemblement National and Les Republicains, respectively, shared the same opinion.
