Support for Bush low across Europe - poll findings

According to the poll findings, around eight out of ten adults in France (79 per cent) and Germany (82 per cent) and more than half in Britain (56 per cent) do not support the policies and leadership of the current US administration. In contrast, just one in five (19 per cent) Britons said they supported the Bush administration, compared with 12 per cent of Germans and 10 per cent of people in France.

Almost nine out of ten (87 per cent) of those questioned in France and Germany believe that the UK should look more towards Europe than the US in pursuing its world interests. At the same time, almost six out of ten (58 per cent) Britons say the country they live in should look to Europe, compared with just 22 per cent opting for the United States. Europe is clearly seen by a majority of respondents in all three countries as the direction which the UK should look to in pursuing its world interests.

The strategic political relationship between the US and the UK is generally seen as being more advantageous to the US among respondents in all countries surveyed. Overall, some 38 per cent of adults questioned in Britain, France and Germany feel that the US gets most out of the US/UK relationship, with just 15 per cent saying that the UK benefits most.

In comparison, among those questioned in Britain, 44 per cent feel that the US gets most out of the relationship, with just 11 per cent agreeing that the UK does best from its strong US ties. This suggests that people in France and Germany believe that the UK benefits more from its relationship with the US than Britons themselves (see also chart overleaf).

Other findings show that more than a third of adults in the three countries surveyed feel less safe and more vulnerable to terrorist attack as a result of the US and UK partnership in the war on terror, rising to 57 per cent among Britons. Only 18 per cent of adults across all three countries say they feel safer.

Marita Carballo, Global Head of TNS Polling & Social, commented: 'At a time when George Bush has come to Britain to underline the closeness of the so-called 'Special Relationship' between the UK and the United States, there is a strong feeling among people in Britain - as well as in other key European countries - that the benefits of this relationship favour the US more than the UK. What, perhaps, is more interesting is that a majority of Britons would prefer to be more closely allied with Europe than the US in pursuing world interests.'

The research was undertaken between 13th-17th November 2003 among representative samples of approximately 1,000 adults in each of Britain, Germany and France. The margin of error in the research is +/- 3.5 per cent.