Nearly two out of three French people dream of being rich so that they no longer need to work. This is the lesson of an Ifop* survey for the site Critiquejeu.info published this Thursday, September 21, while the French have never had so much difficulty making ends meet. A dream shared fairly evenly among all active age groups (between 66% and 68%), but more marked among young people (78% of 18-24 year olds).
The appeal of universal basic income? It is on the left that we most dream of sufficient wealth to give up our work: 71% of respondents who sympathize with La France insoumise are in this situation, compared to 64% of supporters of the National Rally and only 47% at Les Républicains. As for executives, they dream much more of being able to fan their toes (72%) than workers (62%).
This sum necessary to be able to leave everything behind and live “the life of your dreams”, the French estimate on average at 26.4 million euros. A figure inflated by a few big greedy people, 78% of those questioned being more reasonable by donating sums of less than five million euros.
This dream of wealth appeals more to the French than that of being intelligent or being beautiful. If 62% dream of being rich, only 40% want to be “admired by everyone for [their] knowledge” and 34% want beauty such that they could “seduce all [their] potential sexual partners “. Unsurprisingly, if we had to choose between the three, 49% of respondents would opt for wealth, ahead of intelligence (46%) and far ahead of beauty (5%).
*Ifop survey carried out by self-administered online questionnaire from September 12 to 13, 2023 with a sample of 1,015 people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over.