the essential
In our Odoxa – Mascaret survey carried out for Public Senate and La Dépêche du Midi, political instability is the event which most marked the French, which made Gisèle Pelicot the personality of the year 2024.
The first hours of 2025 will have begun when you read these lines. The opportunity to look back one last time towards this year 2024, intense in major events. The photos from Agence France Presse (AFP), one of the three major global agencies which cover news all over the planet – and of which we publish some of the emblematic photos – are there to attest to this.
To find out what you remember from this year, the Odoxa institute and Mascaret for Public Senate and La Dépêche du Midi carried out a survey to find out which event most marked the French and which man or woman they would appoint as a personality of the year.
Gisèle Pelicot in front of Donald Trump
For the latter, the French voted for Gisèle Pelicot, victim for more than ten years of chemical sedation and rape by her husband Dominique and dozens of men. By asking for the closed session to be lifted at the opening of the trial of 51 men which opened before the Vaucluse criminal court, Gisèle Pelicot performed an act of courage, a political act so that “shame changes sides “, “so that all women victims of rape say Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it “, she explained then.
“Events and personalities of the year are not necessarily correlated. Personalities have thus left their mark on the French well beyond the events to which they were linked. Thus, while the Mazan rape case only happened in 6e position of the events of 2024 having had the greatest impact on the French, it is indeed the victim of this affair, Gisèle Pelicot, who is considered by the French as the personality of the year 2024. The personality of this woman, her dignity, but also the horror of what she suffered touched the French. With 38% of citations as personality of the year, she is ahead of the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump, who comes 2nd.e with 37% of citations,” underlines Gaël Sliman, president of Odoxa.
Due to the identification effect, Gisèle Pélicot had an even greater impact on women (46% cited her as personality of the year, i.e. 16 points more than men) and those over 65 (45%, i.e. 14 points more than young people).
Zelensky, Putin, Macron and the others
Volodymyr Zelensky, the courageous Ukrainian president, remains a striking personality for our fellow citizens. It arrives 3e on the 2024 podium with 28% of citations. Followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (with 15%), Emmanuel Macron and pro-Trump billionaire Elon Musk (14% each), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (10%), outgoing American President Joe Biden (6%) and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (last mentioned with 3%).
“It is interesting to note that Emmanuel Macron, although at the origin (and perceived as the main person responsible) for the most significant event of the year, the political instability in France, is ultimately not a personality so significant in this year 2024… a bit as if the French did not or no longer saw in him an actor likely to be able to really influence this situation”, analyzes Gaël Sliman.
The surprise dissolution and its consequences
The event of the year 2024 for the French, precisely, is the political instability in France resulting from the failed dissolution announced the same evening of the European elections, June 9, by Emmanuel Macron, to everyone's surprise.
DDM – Philippe Rioux
“For the French, the current political crisis in France – after the dissolution, the legislative elections, censorship and government instability – is the most significant event of this year 2024. 34% of French people make this event, always in progress, THE big event (which also greatly anguishes them) of the year 2024″, indicates Gaël Sliman, who underlines that “if this political crisis has marked all French people, it has particularly struck the consciences of those over 65 years – with 41% of citations! – who had never experienced such a situation in their entire adult life (the last motion of censure dating back to 1962). The current political crisis in France has had almost twice as much impact on our fellow citizens as international events as major as the election of Donald Trump in the United States (20% of quotes) or Israel's war in Gaza and Lebanon (17 %). »
Debt, the Olympics, Gaza and Ukraine
Are the French a little chauvinistic and focused on themselves? One might think so since the two other events which marked them were France's record debt (2e most notable event with 32% of citations) and the Paris Olympics (3e with 23%).
However, the French were not insensitive to what was happening, more seriously, elsewhere in the world: the re-election of Trump (4e with 20%) and the war led by Israel (5e with 17%) also had a strong impact on our fellow citizens, particularly the youngest, who were particularly shocked by this news (29% of quotes for Trump and 22% for Israel).
“Like the media treatment which has largely shifted from kyiv to Gaza, the Israeli war has largely supplanted the war in Ukraine (17% of quotes compared to only 10%) in the events that have marked the French this year . This marks a radical change: the war in Ukraine was the most significant event of the year 2022… yet it is still ongoing today,” notes Gaël Sliman.
The war in Ukraine should, however, quickly return to the center of the news, since in 2025, possible peace negotiations pushed by Donald Trump upon his inauguration on January 20, could radically change the course of this terrible conflict.
