A Europe of “uncertain believers”, a majority of whom opt for “religious bricolage”, have a high potential for solidarity, but are very pessimistic and critical about the social and political situation: that’s the “panorama of the values of Europeans” as described by Pierre Brechon, of the Institut d’Études Politiques in Grenoble, during the European symposium of the IUCP, the International Union of the Catholic Press, held in Budapest (Hungary) on 19/20 March. Brechon cited the data of a recent survey conducted by the independent think tank “Futuribles”. Europeans, who define themselves as “tolerant” about principles, then “change their attitudes in the individual situations regarding their private life or the life of their local district”. Europeans have little trust in others, but there is a “high potential for solidarity, especially in Sweden and Italy”. Paradoxically, “in spite of their great pessimism about the social and political situation”, Europeans say that in general they are “fairly happy”, even though “electoral participation has declined in all the countries of Eastern and Western Europe” and the citizens of Western Europe have become “more critical towards politicians”: “Europe has never seen so many demonstrations as in recent years. Previously street protests were the preserve only of workers, but now they are used by all social categories”. As regards politics, moreover, Europeans have the sensation “that the identities of right and left are becoming ever more blurred and relative”. As regards religious values, Brechon described “two antithetical minority groups”, a 10% of convinced Christians and, on the opposite extreme, a 10% of convinced non-believers: “Between these two poles there’s the broad mass of European society, consisting of uncertain believers who are not against faith but who choose religious possibilism”.
