Each year, the FIFG surveys the French on behalf of the Academy of Technologies in order to find out what they think of science and technology. This year, the results show clear mistrust.
franceinfo: What does your survey reveal?
Bruno Jarry, Honorary President of the Academy of Technologies : We noticed this year that 56% of French people are worried about new technologies. It’s even worse than in previous years, with 15 points less compared to 2019 and 18 points less than 2018. It is very different, for example, from the perception in the United States.
How to explain this mistrust, even this mistrust?
I think that it comes mainly, this year, from what is happening around the Covid-19. In general, people find it difficult to learn about these subjects. They tell us that they trust researchers and science journalists first, but not politicians at all. From the moment we present certain subjects, like 5G, in a negative way, instead of explaining that there are positive sides alongside possibly negative effects, the population is a little disoriented and tends to see things in a negative way.
Is there a lack of scientific culture in France?
Teachers have great difficulty in teaching even the natural sciences. This is mainly due to the fact that the teachers in the schools have mainly studied literature. There is therefore a lack of scientific training at the base and we do not sufficiently explain how science is constructed.
Having said that, we can also beat our asses because we, engineers or scientists, find it very difficult to explain all of this. In addition, the press tends to promote negative effects rather than positive effects and therefore, in general, information is poorly received.
