Media: Macron's trust rating has fallen below Hollande's record low

French President Emmanuel Macron, toward the end of his second presidential term, has broken the record for distrust set by his predecessor as head of state, François Hollande.

This was reported by the newspaper Les Echos, citing a public opinion poll by the company Elabe.

Among the 1,000 people surveyed from November 3 to 4, only 13% said they still trust the current head of state. That is 1 percentage point less than at the end of the term of the previous president, François Hollande, who in November 2016, according to Elabe, was trusted by only 14% of those surveyed. In both cases, as the publication emphasizes, these are record-low levels of trust in presidents in this company's polls. At the same time, 82% of respondents specifically declared their distrust of Macron, among whom 60% stressed that they "do not trust him at all."

While Hollande, amid popular discontent, decided not to run for a second term, Macron is already completing his second five-year term and by law cannot be elected to a third consecutive term. At the same time, the current crisis of trust is linked to mass protests by trade unions and schoolchildren, which have been continuing across the country since the end of September and on October 17 even escalated into riots with looting. It is claimed that the televised address the president delivered after the October 17 riots not only failed to calm the French, as had been intended, but only reinforced their perception of the head of state's inability to respond to their demands.

"For the French, this is the end of his term. They no longer expect anything from him and see him suffering one failure after another. Distrust of his work is linked to the results of his rule, rising prices and his detachment from the everyday life of ordinary French people, and it continues to grow," Elabe head Bernard Sananès told the publication.