Down and then out in Paris and London? Why Starmer isn’t the only one with a popularity problem | Europe

“People hate you,” the advisor informed his leader. An opinion piece in a daily newspaper said “almost everyone agrees on one thing: they don’t like him.”

The recent disastrous local election results in the UK were built on Keir Starmer’s long-standing reputation problem: just 11% of Britons believe he is a good or great prime minister, according to polling by YouGov, and almost 60% believe he is poor or terrible.

It’s little surprise that many of his colleagues are trying to force him out of Downing Street, even though he’s been in power for less than two years. But the surprisingly outspoken adviser mentioned above was speaking not to Starmer but to France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. This ridiculous newspaper article was about the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, not the British prime minister.

Starmer is unpopular. According to Statista, only 27 percent approve of him, 65 percent disapprove, and 8 percent say they are undecided. But the numbers are even worse for both Merz (19% approve, 76% disapprove and 5% don’t know) and Macron (18% approve, 75% disapprove, 7% don’t know).

The survey shows Europe’s three biggest economies are run by leaders seen as close to being reviled by their people, but few incumbents on the continent buck the trend.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker is seen as an ineffective leader of his coalition. The disapproval rating from Jonas Gahr Støre, whose Labor Party in Norway has been plagued by all kinds of scandals, is only a marginal improvement over Starmer. The same goes for Belgian prime minister Bart de Wever, who leads a coalition that has implemented tough budget cuts, pension reforms and tax increases to fix the country’s public debt.

They all have worse ratings than Donald Trump (38% approve, 57% disapprove and 6% don’t know) at a time when polls show Trump is less popular than ever. This includes the period immediately after his supporters stormed Congress on January 6, 2021. Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are only slightly better off than the US president, and for all their faults, they did not start a war in Iran. So what’s going on?

In Berlin, where Peter Matuschek, head of the polling think tank Forsa, is following the fate of the German chancellor, it can sometimes feel like he is at odds with a generation of Europe’s desperately poor politicians.

Matuschek said Merz was unpopular even before he became chancellor, but his error-filled statements and empty promises had only worsened his poll numbers. Recently the garrulous, self-confident chancellor opened a trans-Atlantic rift by telling a group of schoolchildren that the United States had been “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership.

“If you look at the problems that other incumbents are facing, maybe it’s a lack of politicians who can solve the problems,” Matuschek said. “In the Covid crisis, In early 2020, we saw that all institutions, including the chancellor, the government, the parliament, were really scoring numbers on approval because people saw that even though the problem was so big, they had the impression that something was being done about it. So every crisis includes at least the chance for any leader to grow with the crisis.”

Reaching such a conclusion may be a bit difficult for Macron, who is nearing the end of his 10-year term in power. Since 2022, its capacity to get things done has been hampered by its inability to secure a majority in the national assembly. But Macron’s approval figures are far worse than those of Jacques Chirac at the end of his two terms in 2006, and Chirac was described at the time as “the most unpopular occupant of the Élysée Palace” in the history of the Fifth Republic. But Matuschek’s criticism of Merz – his broken promises, his failure to deliver on reforms and his inability to lead his party – will feel familiar to anyone who has followed the British prime minister’s time in power. Poor judgment and a lack of charisma, or what is arguably wrong in Merz’s case, are part of the problem, of course; But isn’t there a more structural problem facing the European great powers?

According to World Bank data, Europe’s share of global economic output measured in current US dollars fell from roughly 33% to 23% between 2005 and 2024; This rate may be the lowest on the continent since the Middle Ages, according to the Maddison Project, a database tracking economic history at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The US economy is expected to grow by 2.4% this year. Compare this to France (0.9%), the UK (0.9%) and Germany (0.6%). The Wall Street Journal recently reported that executive assistants in New York City earn about the same as attending physicians in London.

Strong leadership can make a difference, but Fabian Zuleeg of the European Policy Center said European leaders face headwinds that any leader will struggle to overcome. These range from Europe’s need to shed its dependence on cheap Russian fossil fuels after Vladimir Putin’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine to the rise of China as an economic and manufacturing powerhouse. In fact, Starmer’s poll numbers are not unheard of in British politics. Margaret Thatcher’s personal ratings are similar to Starmer’s in the survey, conducted 45 years ago this month during a time of great economic hardship: in May 1981, 33.5 per cent were satisfied with Thatcher and 60.5 per cent were dissatisfied.

“I think it’s also more structural,” Zuleeg said of Europe’s leadership problem. “In Europe, in a sense, the holiday of history is over, which means that we have to tell our people that there are difficult times ahead, that will affect their daily lives, that will require unpopular decisions because of the global turmoil we are in. I don’t think our leaders have been able to convince the public that the pain they are feeling is necessary, which means that this has a direct impact on their popularity.”

Scan Europe and find leaders who are bucking the trend, Zuleeg said. After seven years in power, Mette Frederiksen is still in power, clamoring to remain Denmark’s prime minister after an election in which her Social Democratic party was bloodied but unbowed. Coalition talks continue. Frederiksen has whittled down the far-right vote by taking a tough stance on immigration and has navigated a conflict with Donald Trump over his claims to the Danish territory of Greenland. “He’s solid,” said Emil Sondaj Hansen of the Europa think tank in Copenhagen.

But while the cost of living crisis was a major topic of discussion in the recent elections, Denmark has also benefited from long-term energy planning; 80% of the country’s electricity consumption is now provided by renewable energy, primarily wind energy. The Danish economy is expected to grow between 2% and 3% this year. After all, today’s leaders can only do so much to leave their mark. They operate in an environment shaped by the failures and successes of their predecessors.