More than six out of ten French people believe advanced artificial intelligence poses at least a moderate risk to human extinction, according to a survey conducted by the Public First institute for Politico. In the six Western countries surveyed, only Germans and Spaniards are significantly less likely to share this view. The survey, carried out between September 13 and 15, included 2,094 adults in France and more than 2,000 in each of the other five countries. In France, 62.3 percent of respondents perceive at least a moderate risk, with 26.6 percent indicating a moderate risk, 23.5 percent a significant risk, and 12.2 percent considering human extinction by AI almost certain. Only 6.3 percent of respondents dismiss any danger. A majority of French people take the scenario of AI leading to human extinction seriously, with many wanting to slow down the technology or give credit to warnings from those who develop it. Nearly half of the French (48.3 percent) agree with the idea of pausing AI development, according to the survey. A third of the respondents (33.4 percent) prefer to continue development, hoping to gain "significant advantages." Voters who plan to vote for the New Popular Front are the most numerous to demand this pause (55.8 percent), ahead of those for Ensemble (50.6 percent) and the National Rally (48.4 percent). Regarding international competition, opinions are more divided. Overall, 42.6 percent of the French accept that France may fall behind if it develops a more responsible and safer AI, compared to 40.2 percent who reject any setback, even if it means taking risks to stay in the race. Men are 50.3 percent in favor of this second option, compared to 31 percent of women. The British and Canadians more clearly accept this delay, at about 53 percent. In the United States, 2024 voters for Donald Trump are almost evenly divided between a pause (44 percent) and continuing development (40 percent), while the POTUS mentioned a "joke" regarding the extinction risk related to AI on September 14 on Truth Social. According to Politico, the French Mistral AI is the most serious European candidate on the market for cutting-edge AI models. The company led by Arthur Mensch rejects this logic of a pause and, in a statement provided to the press, accused OpenAI and Anthropic of using recent security incidents to promote rules that would stifle competition. In July, more than 1,200 employees from major American AI laboratories signed a letter demanding international coordination and slowing down the development of the most advanced systems. Mid-September, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, relaunched the call to slow down the AI race, with the support of Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Almost half of the respondents (49.2 percent) believe that the employees from the laboratories warning about extinction risk genuinely believe in this danger. For a quarter of the respondents (25.4 percent), it is a marketing stunt intended to highlight the power of their products, and 34.2 percent of those aged 25-34 share this suspicion. On September 8, researcher Jacob Coxon from Anthropic resigned to denounce out-of-control AI development. On September 21, activists from PauseAI reiterated these warnings from Anthropic in front of the European Parliament in Brussels. "We would not get on an airplane that has a one in ten chance of exploding mid-flight," said Didier Coeurnelle, coordinator of PauseAI Belgium. He was referring to the estimate formulated at Anthropic of a risk greater than 10 percent of human extinction by AI. Neil Chilson, responsible for AI policies at the Abundance Institute, finds in these results "the classic pattern of technological panic." Outside of Spain, at least a third of adults in each country rarely, if ever, use AI, notes Business Insider. In France, 22 percent of respondents never use AI and 14.2 percent use it less than a few times a month. "For now, fear outweighs experience. But experience will eventually catch up," warns Neil Chilson. Among those aged 18-24, only 4.8 percent of respondents never use AI, and 55.3 percent nevertheless demand a pause in its development, the highest rate among all age groups.