Europeans Mistrust Government AND Media over Iraq

Almost six out of ten (57 per cent) adults in Britain, France and Germany trust neither their own government nor national TV companies most to give them truthful facts about Iraq, according to a recent CNN/TIME poll conducted by TNS.

One in five adults in Germany (20 per cent) and almost a quarter in Britain (24 per cent) said they trusted TV companies more than their own governments as a source of truthful facts about the Iraq conflict - compared to 9% and 6% respectively trusting the government more. In France, honours were even at 12% each for TV and government.

Across Britain, Germany and France, a significant minority (25 per cent) would like more troops to be sent to Iraq to keep the peace. This is lowest in Germany at 22 per cent but rises to 26 per cent in France and 29 per cent in Britain. At the same time, around one third of respondents across all three countries would like to see all troops withdrawn from Iraq, with the highest figure (38 per cent) in France. Of those agreeing that more troops should be sent, eight out of ten adults in Britain accept that those troops may come from their own country, compared with 62 per cent in France and 44 per cent in Germany.

'These findings suggest that governments in three key European countries have done little to convince people that the information they are giving out on Iraq can be trusted', said Graham Page, Associate Director, TNS. 'Moreover, with the Hutton Inquiry currently underway in the UK, trust in government-sourced information on Iraq is particularly low among Britons.

'People seem to be prepared to look to a wide range of alternative sources when they feel they are not being presented with accurate information from so-called 'official sources''.

Across all three countries, the survey found women even less likely than men to trust the two 'official' sources, and younger people more supportive of sending additional troops to keep the peace.

The research was undertaken among representative samples of approximately 1,000 adults in each of Great Britain, France and Germany (ie a total of approximately 3,000 adults) between 21 and 25 August 2003.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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