Combating world poverty: a priority for the European Union?

68% of French people agree with, or do not oppose, the statement that the fight against global poverty should be a priority of the European Union.

A minority however (19%) believe that world poverty should not be a priority of the European Union, and that this issue does not concern the European Union.

A qualitative approach on the same question through focus groups reveals the same result. Rather than solving the world’s poverty at the national level, French people frequently expect that it should be tackled at EU level. Global poverty reduction, for French people, is an issue to be managed at EU- or international-level rather than domestically.

This data comes from our survey conducted by the YouGov Institute and piloted by the research team at University College London and Birmingham University as part of the project Aid Attitudes Tracker which measures the evolution of opinions and behaviors on issues of international solidarity in four countries.