More than one in four Europeans consider themselves to be in a precarious situation, warns the Secours populaire

Not heating your home despite the cold, skipping a meal when you are hungry… One out of four Europeans declares that they are in a precarious situation, which leads them to give up certain needs; point one Secours Populaire barometer published this Friday.

Due to a “difficult financial situation”, 62% of Europeans have already restricted their movements and 47% have already given up heating their homes despite the cold, according to this study carried out by the Ipsos institute among 6,000 individuals, aged from 18 years and over, from six countries (Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom). It also happened to 29% of these people to skip a meal when they were hungry.

Half of Greeks in a precarious situation

In total, 27% of those questioned said they were in a precarious situation. In detail, 51% of the Greeks consider themselves weakened, against 24% of the French and 18% of the Germans. “With soaring prices, the energy crisis and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, for many Europeans living conditions have deteriorated in 2022”, underlines Secours populaire.

“A situation that is all the more difficult as it follows two years when living standards had been marked by the shock of the health crisis,” he adds. Families are particularly affected: almost one in two parents has already given up on having their child go on vacation or enrolling them in an extracurricular activity and 33% say that they are not always able to give their child a varied diet.

Parents sacrifice themselves

Here again, the Greeks are particularly numerous to face these difficulties. To “provide good living conditions” for their children, 76% of parents deprive themselves of leisure and 48% of food, also notes the survey.

The Secours populaire supported nearly 3.5 million people in difficulty last year. This survey was conducted from June 17 to July 6 with a sample of 6,000 people representative of the national population aged 18 and over in each of the six countries surveyed, according to the quota method. In each country, 1,000 people were interviewed.