French President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity slid to a fresh low following a scandal surrounding his former senior bodyguard, according to a wide-ranging survey on Sunday, countering a less damaging picture painted by other polls, reports Reuters.
Macron, who came to power just over a year ago on an economic reform platform, has been mired in a furor involving his former senior bodyguard, who was caught on camera assaulting a May Day protestor while off duty and wearing police gear
Alexandre Benalla, the former head of Macron’s security detail, was fired last week but opposition leaders criticized the government’s reaction as too slow and took aim at Macron’s refusal to comment on the incident for several days.
An Ifop survey of nearly 2,000 people, published in the French weekly newspaper Journal du Dimanche on Sunday, found Macron’s popularity had slipped one percentage point from a month earlier to a new low of 39 percent in July.
The poll showed a clear shift in opinion before and after the Benalla footage came to light on July 19th, with the president’s ratings falling later in the month when they had previously appeared to improve.