What dream world youth?

How is the world's youth? What are its values, aspirations, fears, identities? We see things the same way depending on whether you live in Beijing or Rabat? These are some questions that have attempted to answer the researchers of the Foundation for Political Innovation, a think tank headed by a liberal political scientist Dominique Reynié.

To do this, the TNS Opinion interviewed 32,700 young people aged 16 to 29 years, from twenty-five countries. A selection that is representative but leaves out some parts of the globe: in Africa are not as Morocco and South Africa, South America, Brazil and the Middle East, Israel. Similarly, the authors acknowledge that the investigation conducted by mail questionnaire, encourages groups of people easier and in contact with globalization.

While some findings appear as expected - the legendary pessimism of young French people - others are more surprising, such as showing that young Chinese are more concerned about pollution. Still others are somewhat anecdotal, as statistics show that 27% of Indian children dream of becoming famous.

The scenery changes abruptly when not assess its own situation but of the entire country: only 25% of young French people are very comfortable with the situation in their country and 47% were satisfied with the time in which they live, against 55% of Europeans. Echoing this concern separation between public and private happiness, the family (88%) that supersedes nationality (63%) in the personal identity of young French.

Barely one in two French (53%) said their personal future promise, against 61% for European youth. Only the Greek and Japanese youths (43%), Hungary (49%), Italian and Spanish (50%) are less optimistic. And when we ask the French about whether their country's future is promising, they are 75% to a negative answer.

We can compare the 17% of French people who think that their country's future is promising with the number of Chinese (82%) or Indians (83%). The Chinese also believe their country's future promising (82%), far ahead of Americans (37%) think they (84%) that their country will play a bigger role in the future.

The Chinese say they are certain to have a good job in the future (85% against 76% for Americans) and are proud of their rich countries (57% against 31% of Americans), asked about what 'they most want to accomplish in the next fifteen years, they say want to "make money" (64% against 53% of Americans), buy a house or apartment (63% against 55% for Americans ) and start a business (40% against 17% of Americans).

Nationality is more important for young Israelis (85%) or young Moroccans (87%) than for young Europeans (66%), young Japanese (54%) or French (63%). For 75% of young Moroccans, ethnicity plays an important role in their identity, against 45% in the European youth and 61% among Turkish youth.

It's the same religion (92% against 35% for Europeans and 74% for Turks). Not only young people attach great importance to the family in general, but they are also satisfied with their own families: 85% Europeans, 87% of Americans and 90% of Indian respondents say. Japanese youth, again, is distinguished by a lower satisfaction rate (69%).

All the youths watching the family as the foundation of society: 94% Chinese, 89% of Estonians, 70% of French or 65% of Swedes. 44% of Europeans believe however that we should give more room for "spiritual values" in society. By contrast, 89% of Chinese share that opinion, but 88% of Russians, 84% of Moroccans, 81% of Turks, 80% of South Africans, 75% Indian, 72% of Mexicans, 71% of Brazilians and 56% of Americans.

Among youths from Europe, the differences are significant. It was the French and Germans who are least likely to want to give more space to spiritual values (31%). Despite a strong distrust of institutions and politicians, young people remain attached to the procedure that is the heart of the democratic system: 81% of young people believe that voting is a duty.

This score is very high everywhere in the world, India saw its youth be at the forefront on the issue of civic duty (94%), followed by Turkish youths (92%) and Mexico (90%). Everywhere, the army has the support of at least 40% of young people, with the exception of the Japanese (36%). Russians (41%) and Germans (43%) show a relatively low confidence with respect to their military.

However, it is a triumph among Indians (93%), Chinese (84%) and Israelis (80%). In Europe, the Finns and Britons (67%) are the youths who have the most confidence in their army. Spaniards (88%), French (87%), the British and Germans (85%) are most likely to say they have no problem with people having a sexual orientation different from theirs.

Conversely, the most likely to express discomfort are Moroccans (40%), Israelis (38%), Turks (37%) and Chinese (30%). The gender equality becomes a value on it more and more consensual. Young Westerners make gender equality one of the characteristics of their ideal society (94% of Americans and French, 93% of Canadians and Spaniards, 91% of Germans, Finns, Australians and Britons ).

Moroccan youth is the most reluctant to the idea of gender equality, 50% of Moroccans do not retain this criterion to define their ideal society as well, but to a lesser extent, Japanese youths (30%) , Israel (24%) and Turkey (20%). Benedict Vitkine

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