One in six French citizens, almost a sixth of the country's population (16 percent), sympathize and have a favorable disposition towards the Islamist militant group ISIS, also known as Islamic State, according to a new poll.
Conducted by ICM Research for Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya, the survey asked people across the western European countries of Germany, the U.K. and France whether their view of IS was favorable or unfavorable, International Business Times reported. The poll question was: "From what you know, please tell me if you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable opinion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant otherwise known as ISIS?."
A breakdown of the age groups participating in the poll revealed that the younger the respondent, the more likely they were to have a favorable view of IS, with the highest opinion of the group coming in from the age group of 18-24, according to IBT. While 20 percent of French people between the ages of 35 and 44 had a favorable opinion of IS, 22 percent of 25-34-year-olds were also favorable to the group.
Newsweek's France Correspondent, Anne-Elizabeth Moutet, was unsurprised by the news.
"This is the ideology of young French Muslims from immigrant backgrounds," she said, "unemployed to the tune of 40 percent, who've been deluged by satellite TV and internet propaganda."
France, home to a population of 66 million, has a Muslim community of 4.7 million (as of 2010), largely of North African descent, who arrived from the 1950s onwards in the wake of France's de-colonization and the 1970s regroupement familiale policy, which welcomed the families of migrant workers from ex-colonies.
In recent years, "France has witnessed a growing threat of terrorism as hundreds of young French Muslims are believed to have flocked abroad to fight for jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, with the potential to return home as radicalized members of society," IBT reported. As many as 1,500 British Muslims may have travelled to the Middle East to fight for ISIS, putting the figure at more than twice the number that fight for the British armed forces, a British MP claimed last week.
For the ICM poll's data collection, the company interviewed 1,006 French nationals by telephone from July 11 to July 21. The poll had a margin of error of 1.5-3 percent.
