The poll was conducted online in late January — as France was in the midst of large-scale farmers’ protests — among 1,034 people forming a “nationally and politically representative sample.”
It was also carried out in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, where similar results were found among samples of similar sizes.
Far-right parties are expected to make sizeable gains everywhere but in Poland, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal Civic Coalition is forecast to receive 35 percent of the vote.
In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is projected to win 17 percent of the vote, up from 11 percent in the 2019 EU election.
“The EU is heading into these elections with citizens in a deeply pessimistic mood,” Portland Communications CEO Victoria Dean said, adding that voters were “concerned about issues which are difficult to fix.”
In France, Germany, Italy and Poland, the cost-of-living crisis topped voters’ agenda, while the housing crisis was the top concern for Dutch respondents.