Polls

Major French newspaper drops opinion polls ahead of 2017 elections

The editor of one of France’s most popular newspapers has said he will stop commissioning opinion polls ahead of next year’s presidential election, citing pollsters’ failure to predict Brexit or November’s US election.

Stéphane Albouy, who heads Le Parisien and its sister title Aujourd’hui en France (which are by and large identical, although Le Parisien provides local Paris news), said he wanted his journalists to focus on “on the ground reporting” instead of relying on surveys.

“We have been thinking about it for some time now, especially since Brexit and the election of Donald Trump,” he told AFP.

“It is not a question of defying the pollsters so much as experimenting with a different way of working ahead of the elections,” he said, adding that he would not forbid reporters commenting on polls commissioned by other titles.

Polls

VLADIMIR PUTIN'S SECRET WEAPON

Putin’s Kremlin also believes passionately in getting data on public opinion—though the methods it uses are questionable. Last December, the Kremlin appointed Irina Makiyeva, a former state bank executive, to head a massive new polling service to monitor Russia’s political temperature in minute detail. Under the direct aegis of the Federal Guard Service—Russia’s equivalent of the U.S. Secret Service that is charged with the president’s personal security—it deploys thousands of state employees to scan local press and social networks for signs of discontent.

“We conduct constant monitoring, especially in the problem cities,” Makiyeva promised the Russian Cabinet, unveiling a classification system—green, yellow and red—to warn of potential political or social unrest.