The sunny days are back… and with them come the results of the annual survey conducted by the Opinion Way polling institute on behalf of FEBEA into the use of sun protection in France. The findings were unveiled at a press workshop held on 21 May 2026, and the conclusion is clear: there is still room for improvement!
The 2026 survey was conducted on 11–12 March using a self-administered online questionnaire, with a sample of 1,033 people representative of the French population aged 18 and over. The sample was selected using a quota method based on criteria such as gender, age, socio-professional category, type of urban area and region of residence.
Encouraging figures… but cause for concern (?)
“We’re all exposed to the sun, whether at home – in the garden, for example – but also indoors, and of course when out for a walk, on a terrace, or at the beach…,” began Éléonore Quarré, Head of Social Research at OpinionWay.
And the first finding of this study is that 71% of French people say they use sun cream when spending several hours in the sun at the beach or the swimming pool.
This is a significant figure, indicating that protective habits are well established, but it needs to be put into perspective in light of two other figures:
• it has fallen by 12 percentage points compared with the previous survey,
• and only a third of respondents say they apply their protection every two hours.
The trend is the same when French people …
