About 500 surveys are issued per year. Political polls are especially numerous, even compared to the United States, cradle of surveys. Such wealth of surveys has three causes. The first one is probably the personalization of the French political life, which stems in great part from the universal suffrage of the presidential elections which encourages people to keep a close eye on the popularity rating of the various leaders. The symbiosis between the political science and research as well as the appetite of the French press for opinion polls may be two other reasons.
Polls are only the tip of the opinion surveys iceberg.
They form the obvious part of research, but a great majority of surveys carried out by research institutes come close to marketing and market research. Consumers are in fact more often sounded out than citizens. Not all the achieved polls are issued. A great number of them are commissioned by political parties, governemental leaders or members who keep the results to themselves. These confidential polls frequently aim at clarifying the political actors' strategy.