Britons are the most likely of seven European nations to say their country is in a sorry state, but the French are the most likely to think things will get worse over the next 12 months, according to a poll weeks before high-stakes elections in both countries. With the exception of Denmark, however, none of the European countries surveyed by YouGov in late May and early June revealed themselves to be particularly happy with the the way things were going, or overly optimistic for the future. Voters in the UK go to the polls on 4 July in a ballot expected to bring to an end 14 chaotic years of Conservative rule, while the second round of France’s vote on 7 July is likely to result in a huge increase in support for the far right and a hung parliament. The first round of the vote is on Sunday. Asked whether they thought their country was in a bad way at the moment, 80% of respondents in the UK replied “very bad” or “fairly bad” – compared with 71% in France, 70% in Germany, 68% in Italy, 67% in Spain, 49% in Sweden and 25% in Denmark.
Britons were also the most likely to say the state of their country was “generally worse” than other western nations, with 43% saying all or most other countries had it better, 35% thinking the UK was about average, and just 10% believing things were better. That compared with 41% of Italians who felt their country was in a worse state than others, 40% of Spaniards, 34% of Germans, 29% of French, 27% of Swedes and, again, barely 6% of Danes – 47% of whom said their country was doing better than the rest.
However, when people were asked whether they expected things to get better nationally over the coming year, the French were the most pessimistic, with fully 50% expecting the reverse and 30% believing things would only “stay about the same”.
Respondents in Germany, where the far-right AfD recently finished ahead of all three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s embattled coalition, were not looking forward to the next 12 months either, with 43% saying they expected things to get worse. Britons were the third least optimistic of the nations surveyed, with 39% expecting the state of their country to decline further, followed by Spaniards (35%), Italians (30%) and Swedes (28%). Danes were again the cheeriest: only 15% thought things would get worse. While most of the polling was carried out just before European parliamentary elections this month, the results could be seen as yet more evidence of voters’ lack of faith in the continent’s politicians to effect meaningful change.