Not-so-well-liked: Who are Europe’s Most Unpopular Leaders?

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s popularity ratings are some of the lowest ever recorded by a German leader at just 18%, according to a survey published in September by Infratest Dimap.

By contrast, long-standing Chancellor Angela Merkel largely enjoyed a median confidence rating of 76% over her 16-year term — with her lowest-ever approval rating dropping to 46% following her open-border policies during the 2016 refugee crisis.

Scholz, who is the head of a deeply divided three-way coalition government, has found his popularity plummet, culminating in his party scoring a low 14% of the vote in the European elections in June — behind both Germany’s major opposition party and fringe parties such as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Although Scholz’s popularity is particularly low, other European leaders are not faring much better, with many of the continent’s most recognisable faces scoring low according to available polling data collected over the past three months in their respective countries.

Why are Europeans upset with their leaders?

Although the measure of each leader’s popularity is often due to circumstances in their own country, Jan Kubik, director of the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London, told Euronews that a general sense of disappointment with “politics as usual” may be responsible for leader’s generally low ratings in Europe.

“There is a palpable sense of malaise caused by the perception that the world is not in good shape, and nobody knows how to improve the situation,” Kubik said, adding that Europe also has a shortage of “positive visionaries” in its political landscape which is marred by two major wars and increasing popularity of the far-right.

However, some leaders can breathe a sigh of relief that their approval ratings are not much lower than those of their predecessors.

The gradual erosion of trust in Tusk could be explained by looking at Poland’s ever-increasing polarisation, according to Kubik, as well as Tusk’s controversial attempts to repair damage to democracy done by his right-wing predecessors from PiS — a process which involves him grappling with rules introduced by Poland’s former government.

Kubik notes that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has seen trust slowly erode since taking office. However, so far, distrust in him is not as high as it was for the leader of the former ruling Law and Justice, or PiS party, and Tusk’s main political rival, Jarosław Kaczyński.

“The slowness and hardly comprehensible complexity of this process result in the growing perception that the government is incompetent,” Kubik said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose latest approval rating was just 30%, is also not alone in his unpopularity within France, where leaders have historically been unpopular. In 2016, former French President François Hollande famously scored just 4% of support.

Nevertheless, French political analyst Francois Valentin told Euronews that Macron has made himself disliked in France by publicly placing himself at the centre of political decisions — leaving himself open to considerable backlash if his government’s choices end up not resonating with the French public.

“It worked to his advantage when he was new, now its working against him. Especially now that he is increasingly isolated, even within his own political sphere,” Valentin said.

As for Scholz, his lack of presence on the public stage has been often cited as a reason for his unpopularity.

“Many people miss him at the public stage, explaining his decisions and the policies of the federal government to the voters. He does not appear to be very responsive to public demands either,” Antonios Souris, political scientist at the Freie University in Berlin, explained.

“There were periods this year in which he seemed to completely disappear.”