As France experiences a new wave of political turbulence, Étienne Ollion, sociologist at CREST-CNRS and École Polytechnique, has been invited by several major European media outlets to help make sense of the current situation.
Over the past week, he has shared his insights on Radio France’s Questions du Soir, Austria’s Ö1 – Europa Journal, Denik N in the Czechia, and Politiken, one of Denmark’s leading newspapers. All of them turned to him to better understand how French institutions and public opinion are reacting to the latest government resdhuffle and budget debates.
Throughout these interviews, Étienne Ollion offers a sociologist’s perspective on the moment: how political uncertainty connects to deeper transformations in the evolution of party systems, and how current responses are out of sync with citizens’ expectations of public action.
He notes that France’s tripolar political landscape, divided between the presidential camp, the left, and the far right, has made coalition-building and compromise increasingly difficult in Parliament.
On Ö1 – Europa Journal, Austria’s leading public radio channel for culture and information, he explained that the rapid turnover of governments reflects not only political tensions but also “a deeper transformation of democratic life, where citizens expect more responsiveness and clarity from public action, and a wider role in the making of the nation”.
In Denik N, he pointed to growing frustration across social groups and a steady decline in confidence toward political representatives. And on France Culture, during a debate asking “Can France still be governed?”, he discussed the ways out of the political stalemate.
In Politiken, he provided international readers with context on how France’s political structures and social expectations interact in this volatile moment.
These interventions are closely linked to Étienne Ollion’s research on political representation and the evolution of elites. In his book The Candidates (Oxford Press, 2024), he studied how newcomers to politics navigate institutions and hierarchies, shedding light on the renewal and professionalization of political life. His more recent work, Une étrange victoire. L’extrême droite contre la politique (Seuil, 2024, with Michaël Foessel), explores the underpinnings of the rise of the far-right, between the growing opposition to democratic representation, a changing media landscape, and the new communication strategy of its main party, the National Rally.
At CREST, he develops research using computational methods to analyse public debate and political representation. This mix of empirical study, institutional knowledge, and data-driven analysis makes him a valuable voice for understanding the forces currently reshaping French democracy.