After the first round of the presidential election, David Medioni and Lionel Abbo are interested, for the foundation's media observatory, in the influence that television shows have participated in which the candidates participated, and on that whichcould have the debate of between-tours.
2022. For more than a year, we hear and read that the presidential election will be played on social networks.That hordes of undecided await very wisely on Instagram, Twitch and Tiktok that we come to convince them, seduce them.LIKER.Remember, even the surveys say: 67% of under twenty-five years trust social networks more than traditional media to learn.Faced with so much disenchantment, television watches.
Depuis le début de la VeRépublique, elle fait et défait le destin de la politique française. Elle a rendu Charles de Gaulle sympathique et François Mitterrand charismatique. Tous les cinq ans, elle est le rendez-vous incontournable des annonces, des débats, des petites phrases. Au milieu du salon, elle reste le centre de l’attention.
In fifty years, the role of the small screen has fundamentally evolved, according to the relationship that men and politicians maintained towards it.First it was necessary to tame his image.His gestures.To reassure.Seduce.De Gaulle, a radio man, had to adapt and, the first, tried exercises that would become over time of "classics": the press conference (1958), the political interview (1965).
The report of television candidates is the magnifying mirror of the ambiguity that links journalists and politicians: the first are there to inform, the latter to communicate.The show is often born from the spark of their friction.The viewer is bored when everyone plays their score in their corridor, the questions of one failing to bypass the elements of language prepared by the communicators of the other.He zaps when the connivance of these two worlds which rub shoulders on a daily basis is too obvious.The plateau then becomes the playground of an ambition that in the name of the sacrosanct democracy we leave to take shape.
In thirty years, the number of spaces left to policies of all stripes has multiplied, in quantity and gender.In the 1980s, there was "right of response", "7 out of 7", "the hour of truth" or "La Marche du siècle".Today, we are talking about the presidential elections on all the channels and at any time.From "Daily" to "C to you", "from Élysée 2022" to "Faced with Baba", we decrypt, we are insulted, we protest, we question the programs, we are looking for ko with punchlines, we are struggling in debates whose great absent is the subject.Television is an arena in which the outgoing president refuses to descend.
What do the figures say about this proliferation?If we stick to the hearings of only political emissions, it is clear that they are down sharply compared to 2017. Is it the lack of suspense, the lack of debate that explains this disinterest?In "Elysée 2022", broadcast on March 3, Marine Le Pen brought together only 1.89 million viewers (less than 10% market share).Five years ago, it attracted 3.4 million to the same time.Likewise, "France in front of the war", the only program that brought together eight candidates at the moment, has painfully convinced 4.21 million viewers, when the debate between five candidates, in 2017, attracted 9.8 million.
Sign of times: TF1 has chosen to shorten its electoral evening of the first round to program a consumer film (visitors).Cyril Hanouna had promised his fans two presidential evenings.C8 canceled them.
We lend to the small screen of bad intentions.By images, he would suggest voting instructions.Would promote one candidate rather than another.Would lower politics to the rank of simple entertainment.Would not allow those who wish to address the French directly.Journalists, these impediments.
It was enough for a sign, or rather 280, so that some candidates believe social networks capable of changing the fate of the ballot boxes.They offered them direct access to the people, without the dubious intermediation of Léa Salamé or Gilles Bouleau.In the United States, Donald Trump treated CNN from "Fake News" and prevailed on Twitter.
L’audience cathodique s’est-elle déportée sur le numérique ? On pourrait le penser en constatant qu’Emmanuel Macron a gagné plus de 500 000 abonnés sur les réseaux sociaux suite à l’annonce de sa candidature. Mais la websérie Le Candidat, qui suit sa campagne sur YouTube, a vu ses audiences s’effondrer, passant de 380 000 pour le 1erépisode à 70 000 vues pour le 4e. De même, les audiences des émissions politiques qui ont fleuri sur Twitch (« Backseat », « MashUp »…) ou sur YouTube (« 24 heures avec » présenté par Magali Berdah) demeurent confidentielles.
The French have an ambivalent relationship with virtual worlds and those who hold them.Often transparency has changed into distrust.Facebook algorithms have favored the billionaire election with the sole purpose of avoiding the dismantling of the platform (promise of Bernie Sanders) and preserving his economic interests.That the false information, propagated by foreign powers via false profiles (Russia), made understanding of the plot and biased world.That each user is locked in a silo, formatted by his own centers of interest, making it impossible to understand the overall issues of a situation.
2022. Once again, the great moments of the French presidential election are played on television.The candidates master the codes.One of them even officiated there as a columnist and editorialist before running.How, over the years and five years, have they learned to tame this unique media?Conversely, what is the share of influence of the small screen on political life and the results of the ballot boxes?Back on these moments that have transformed the politician, originally atheist media, into a cathodic believer, which only counts on television to take away all the votes.
Punchlines: "surprise viewers"
With the multiplication of the media and the dictatorship of the immediacy imposed by information chains and social networks, two phenomena have telescopés for the political corpus: on the one hand, the offer of speech has neverbeen also wide.Between 2015 and 2021, the number of political interviews has more than doubled on television and radio (more than 150 per week today).On the other hand, each speech pronounced within a media is relayed, taken up, dissected by others.This double parameter obliges most elected officials and members of the government to serve the same elements of language on each tray.Result: if not invisible, they become inaudible.
To get out of the lot and mark the spirits, their communicators chose to transform the places of debate into a boxing ring and the TV sets on stand-up.Everyone goes from their punchline, their good word, calculating its effectiveness with the number of ricochets that it produces on the other waves.
Le journaliste Ludovic Piedtenu l’explique parfaitement sur France Culture en 2017 :
« L’émergence des petites phrases est à mettre en rapport avec la modernité médiatique. Live tweets, bandeau des chaînes d’information en continu, accroches journalistiques : le traitement médiatique de la parole politique privilégie de plus en plus les formats concis et autoporteurs. C’est ce qu’on appelle l’aphorisation de la parole politique. En fait, les politiques parlent de plus en plus souvent en petites phrases parce qu’ils et elles anticipent les conditions de la reprise et de la mise en circulation dans l’espace public des énoncés produits, parce qu’ils et elles se conforment aux attendus médiatiques pour faire de leur parole non pas un prêt-à-porter, mais un prêt-à-rapporter.1Ludovic Piedtenu, « Les petites phrases en politique », France Culture, diffusé le 24 mars 2017, disponible en podcast.«
November 20, 2003. Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, is the guest of "100 minutes to convince", the flagship political program of the public service.To conclude, Alain Duhamel asks him if he thinks of the presidential election in the morning by shaving himself."Not just when I shave," said the future head of state maliciously.These six words have since entered into common language, an imaginary way to describe an ambitious, a portrait that fits well with the minister's reputation.To the point that we often forget that he is not the first politician to have used the expression, that we owe to Laurent Fabius.In the same show, three weeks earlier, when he was asked the question "Do you think of the Élysée?", He replied," I sometimes think about it in the morning by shaving myself.Eight words.Too much probably to enter posterity.
Four years later, Ségolène Royal was in the neck with Nicolas Sarkozy in the polls. Arnaud Montebourg, spokesperson for his campaign, is invited on the set of the "Grand Journal", the main information talk of the tranche 19-21 hours at the time. Sitting alongside Nadine Morano, the socialist is interviewed by Michel Denisot. The questions are benevolent, it is an understatement. However, one of them will arouse a media tsunami. "What is the main defect in Ségolène Royal?" Innocently asks the presenter. "His companion," replied the political man from the politician, amazing the journalist and the guests around the table. Impossible to know if the valve was improvised or premeditated, but its speed of execution challenges. Is this blow below the belt a turning point in the countryside? As of January 19, 2007, all polls place the candidate below the 30%mark, which had never happened until then. Later, Arnaud Montebourg admits to having given in to his cute sin: the right word.
It is undoubtedly a passion that he shares with another socialist: François Hollande.In 2012, it has been more than fifteen years since the left did not find the way to the Élysée.Three elections in a row, all lost.The five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy has been marked by the subprime crisis, the greater financial crisis since 1929. The enemy is all found, it is still necessary to find the words to identify it.The future "normal" president appoints him to the Le Bourget meeting, with violence that marks a turning point in the campaign: "My enemy is finance.»»
If we lend the fashion for punchlines upon arrival of social networks and news channels, let's not forget that others have used it well before."They are thought and built to be detachable from the texts to which they initially belong," explains Ludovic Piedté.From the "noise and the smell" of Jacques Chirac to the "monopoly of the heart" of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing via the worship "a chef is made to chef", the little sentences with great consequences have always been there'The prerogative of great men and their duels.As if the words could replace revolvers.And shoot their opponent.
The debates that have changed the situation: Emergence of characters from Pop Culture TV
"None of the outgoing presidents who had decided to represent themselves debated with their competitors before the first round.I don't see why I will do it.This is what Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic in the campaign for his re -election said on March 7.
Beyond the question of whether the president must or may not debate with the other candidates, it is certain that the debate on television has profoundly transferred since his appearance, one evening in 1974, between the two towers of a presidential election.Indeed, in 1965 and 1969, of debate there was not despite the appearance of television which favored the candidate Mitterrand.Taking advantage of this exhibition, he succeeded in the feat in 1965 to tumble General de Gaulle who refused to go on television.
In terms of audiences, the debates of between-tours represent for the French large masses, guaranteeing their broadcasters the best scores of the year.Proof that the moment is decisive.However, it should be noted that the number of viewers dropped every five years: in 2007, there were an average of 20 million to follow the debate between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal.In 2012, more than 18 million to see the same Sarkozy put his post into play against François Hollande.In 2017, 16 million people followed the Macron-Le Pen duel.
It was therefore in 1974 that things as we know them now appeared.The sacrosanct debate of the in-between-tours between the two candidates who arrived in the final.Obviously, American influence is not for nothing in this evolution of 1974. The modernity of a Kennedy and the cathodic love of a Nixon exported to tease the various presidential stables and in particular that of a ValéryGiscard d'Estaing who, in 1974, wanted to embody the greatest modernity.Valéry Giscard d'Estaing therefore worked, understood the interest of the moment of debate in a very tight election.He will therefore play his all-in-all against a somewhat stuck in François Mitterrand in the exercise that day.
Thus, Giscard d'Estaing sets off a refrain: "Mr. Mitterrand, you are a man from the past.And above all, while the confrontation between the left and the right is deep in the society of the time, and the left appears as the favorite of this election, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing manages to reverse the situation.The key moment in this debate is known, of course.On the question of the distribution of wealth, François Mitterrand says: "It is almost a question of intelligence, it is also a matter of heart.To which Valéry Giscard d'Estaing responds this sentence that remained famous: "You do not have, Mr. Mitterrand, the monopoly of the heart.»»
On the evening of the election, Giscard won a very short head with 50.81% of the vote and barely 425,000 votes in advance on its socialist competitor.The key moment in the debate in which Giscard reverses the trend may have been constituted, at least that is what historians of politics think today, a moment of rocking.
What is interesting is then to place oneself seven years later on the eve of the 1981 election and to notice how François Mitterrand uses television to embody the president he wants to be.In this electoral year, two key moments.François Mitterrand, now accompanied for the communication of Jacques Pilhan and Gérard Colaé, implemented the precept dear to Pilhan according to which television memory dates back two months and that it was structured by a dozen striking sequences.
Thus, on March 16, 1981, while he knows full well that the majority of French people were opposed to the abolition of the death penalty, candidate François Mitterrand, on the occasion of the program "Cards sur Table", presentedBy Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, confirms with force that he will propose this abolition if the people elect him president of the Republic.Nothing is prepared and Mitterrand uses the image vector that TV then constitutes solemnly to the French and draw what he wants for France on this specific subject of the death penalty.
The second striking moment, two months later, was obviously the debate of the in-between-tours which again opposed it to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.In seven years, Mitterrand has learned.He is smiling and uses the moment of the debate to make an impression.Mitterrand gets scathing with a smile: "You don't want to talk about the past, I understand it naturally and you tend a little to take up the refrain from seven years ago: the man of the past ... it's whenEven boring as in the meantime you have become the man of the passive."We are on May 5, 1981 and on the 10th, Mitterrand is elected with 51.76 % of the vote and a little more than a million votes in advance.
During the following decade, François Mitterrand will pass master in the art of debate and in the way of playing with television codes to broadcast a political message. There will be, thus, the Electric Deux-Tours of 1988 against Jacques Chirac, his Prime Minister of Cohabitation. François Mitterrand calls him on several occasions "Mr. Prime Minister". Jacques Chirac remarks to him: "Tonight, you are not the President of the Republic, we are two candidates on an equal. [] So you will allow me to call you Mr. Mitterrand. "Mitterrand retorts:" But you are absolutely right, Mr. Prime Minister. "This debate is also marked by a keen exchange on the referral to Tehran de Wahid Gordji, an Iranian diplomat suspected of having organized the 1986 attacks in Paris:" Jacques Chirac: Can you say Mr. Mitterrand, looking at me In the eyes, which I told you […] that we had the evidence that Gordji was guilty of complicity or actions in previous acts […] Can you really challenge my version of things by looking me in the eye? "To which an impassive mitterrand answers:" In the eyes, I dispute it. »»
Ce débat ne change pas la donne de l’élection qui est largement favorable au président socialiste, mais il contribue à installer François Mitterrand comme un personnage de la pop culture télévisuelle avec le surnom « Tonton ». Il débat ainsi, par exemple, avec Philippe Séguin, tenant du « non » au référendum sur Maastricht le 3 septembre 1992, à quelques jours du vote, ainsi qu’avec l’écrivain Jean d’Ormesson sur le même sujet, maniant alors art de la dialectique et du verbe. Cela jusqu’à ses derniers vœux aux Français et sa fameuse phrase « Je crois aux forces de l’esprit », qui installe pour la postérité le personnage comme l’une des figures politiques majeures de la télévision. Tout comme Jacques Chirac, via ses passages télé : « abracadabrantesques », « je décide, il exécute », ou par sa marionnette des Guignols de l’info, qui est également l’un des peoples de cette nouvelle relation qui se noue entre 1981 et 2000 entre les politiques et la télé. Comme un symbole, Chirac paraît déconnecté au moment du référendum sur le traité constitutionnel européen le 14 avril 2005 sur TF1 où, lors d’un débat avec les jeunes, il lance, déconcerté : « Je ne comprends pas de quoi vous avez peur2« Débat de M. Jacques Chirac, président de la République, avec un jeune sur TF1 le 14 avril 2005, sur les apports de la Constitution européenne à la construction de l’Europe », Vie publique. »
The other presidential debates that have marked the spirits are those of the 2000s. If the decade begins without debate since Jacques Chirac refuses to speak with Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, that of 2007 between Ségolène Royal (Socialist Party) and Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) gives rise to a pass of weapons on the just anger which Sarkozy comes out victorious, which comes to reinforce his advance in the countryside.Obviously, everyone remembers the confrontation between Nicolas Sarkozy, outgoing president, and François Hollande (Socialist Party) in 2012. Two children of television facing and for 3 minutes 28 François Hollande states his challenger, who does not react anddoes not interrupt him, a "me, president" anaphora, which has become famous.
The one between the two towers of the 2017 election between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron is marked in particular by the obsolete expressions of the one who will become president - "you offer perlimpinpin powder" -, but also obviously by a Marine Le Pen whoseems to lose foot.She will say it after the election: "I had not prepared my debate enough.»»
The slippages and stolen moments: the "loft story" politics
The father of all slippages, which is certainly not one, is obviously that of Jean-Marie Le Pen.During the pre-campaign for the 1988 presidential election, the leader of the National Front represents only 10% of the voting intentions in the polls when, on September 13, 1987, guest of the "Grand Jury" on RTL, he replied inThese terms to a question on the Shoah and its negationism: “I have not specially studied the question, but I believe that it is a point of detail of the history of the Second World War.The statement obviously makes a scandal, even in its ranks.However, its results are not long in coming.In the first round, his score of 14.39% of the votes was considered one of the first signs of the lasting installation of the far right in the tricolor political landscape.Le Pen had certainly studied the opinions of his camp to make this outing and mobilize.
Avec l’entrée dans les années 2000, les télés ayant pris l’habitude de tout capter, de suivre pas à pas les candidats ou les politiques avec des perches de prises de son, un nouveau genre est apparu : celui des dérapages saisis ou des moments volés qui deviennent ainsi des sujets politiques. Comme dans The Truman Show, ce film de Peter Weir dans lequel tous les faits et gestes de Truman Burbank sont scrutés pour les besoins d’une émission de téléréalité, ou dans « Loft Story », les politiques sont placés en permanence sous les regards des caméras. Comme si le fait de scruter en permanence quelqu’un renseignait sur son être profond et donnait des clés d’analyse quant à la politique qu’il mènera. Cela révèle certainement des traits de personnalités, mais cela dénote surtout le rapport enfantin que ces dispositifs cultivent dans la relation des Français avec la politique. Ainsi, les Français réclament des « politiques proches des gens », mais ces derniers ne doivent pas dire de gros mots à la télévision, de même ils doivent être « comme les autres », mais « doivent faire attention à leurs lieux de vacances ». Dans cette émission de téléréalité géante, une seule chose compte : le spectacle. « Le spectacle n’est pas un ensemble d’images, mais un rapport social entre des personnes, médiatisé par des images3Guy Debord, La société du spectacle, Paris, Folio, 1967. », écrivait Guy Debord. Nous y sommes.
The list of shows of shows to which each and each has been exposed since the turn of the 2000s is colossal. Nicolas Sarkozy paid the costs at least two times. One who was positive, at least to mobilize his electorate and go and triangulate with that of Marine Le Pen. “As of tomorrow, we will clean the city at the Kärcher. We will put the necessary workforce and the time it will be, but it will be cleaned, "this is the sentence pronounced by Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, on June 19, 2005, in the city of 4,000 at La Courneuve, after The death of Sid-Ahmed Hammache, an eleven-year-old child killed at the bottom of his building, victim of a brawl between two bands. A few months later, in the fall, the suburbs ignited in Clichy-sous-Bois. During the year 2005, Sarkozy recurred, under the eye of the cameras, on the slab of Argenteuil by looking at a lady on the balcony and throwing him: "Are you fed up with this scum? We're going to get rid of it! Whatever we think of these projections, by pronouncing them, in a form of controlled slippage, Nicolas Sarkozy uses the "Embedded" television system in the outings of policies to spend political messages for such or such Readership.
The other famous slippage of Nicolas Sarkozy, who became President of the Republic, takes place in February 2008 at the Agricultural Show.To a visitor who refuses his handshake by declaring to him: "Ah no touch me, you dirty!", The president retorts" ah bah, a packer ’con" recorded by all televisions and which becomes a major political subject for a week.Should the president speak in this way or on the contrary did he not do well to reply with his guts as French people would do?In terms of image, the controversy is not good for Nicolas Sarkozy;On the other hand, it demonstrates if necessary the power of these presidential, ministerial or candidates in the manufacture of opinions, in capacity - amplified since by social networks - to raise under the cover of a stolen sentence a subject orAnother and to send, also test balloons.
Manuel Valls paid the price in 2009. While he was followed by Direct 8 cameras for a report on his city of Évry, he asks his advisor to "put some whites, some white, some white people", to give another image of the city of Évry.On the set on the day of the distribution of the report in his presence, the future Prime Minister, first embarrassed, tries an explanation: "I have the idea, basically, of a diversity, of a mixture which does notCan not be a ghetto ... We must bring a social diversity because it is essentially there, the problem, for a city like Évry […] which lacks a city center ... to welcome its middle classes, which are from ornot immigration.This episode continued him throughout his political life, until his aborted attempt to be the candidate of the socialists in January 2017, beaten by Benoît Hamon.
François Hollande also paid the price.So president, he is filmed advisor to Fleur Pellerin, Minister of Culture, on her role and on the approach she must have: "See Jack Lang, he has ideas."And he adds:" Every evening, you have to get that.And say that it is good, that it is beautiful.They want to be loved!"It was filmed by Yves Jeuland's cameras when he made a documentary on the Élysée and the practice of power by François Hollande.He shouldn't have said that.
The list could still be long and take the appearance of a prevert list as this logic of the trap or trap, trapping or politics that uses the presence of cameras to flirt with such or such electorate, is common.In this ping-pong, Emmanuel Macron is holding his rank with his famous: "If I cross the street, I find you work", or "people who succeed and people who are nothing".Between the desire to transgress and send signals to the liberal right electorate which he covets and skids.
Sentences that are similar to the effect of the kiss and hug of Loana and Jean-Édouard in the "Loft Story" pool.Everything gives the impression that it is stolen and authentic, while everyone knows that everything is filmed, recorded, noted, decrypted, etc.The "magic" of "loft story" politics.
The myth of politics
This "loftstorization" of political life and its transformation into a giant reality TV is in fact a dedication of a practice of "myth" and a desire to give access to behind the scenes which would rather be a desire to tell theinterior policy.
It was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing who inaugurated the genre by entrusting the photographer and director Raymond Depardon the care to film his 1974 campaign from every angle by giving him access to many personal and strategic moments.This campaign party is a model of its kind and has its source in American campaign films.
It will not, however, be released until 2012. Funny timing for a myth.The time of rocking for these images comes from football.In 1998, Aimé Jacquet's Blues were world champions and Jérôme Caza filmed the interior of the victory.On July 14, 1998, two days after the coronation of the French team against Brazil (3-0) in Saint-Denis, the film in the Blues was broadcast and sequences become cult.
In 2001, Lionel Jospin, then Prime Minister of Cohabitation of President Chirac, called on the same Jérôme Caza to tell his campaign from the inside which was to be his triumphant march towards the Élysée.The story is known.The campaign does not take place as planned and Caza finds itself, in fact, to show behind the scenes of a moment of rocking success to the defeat until filming the key scene of the film where three days before the first round of the presidential election2002, the staff of the Jospin campaign, influenced by Jean-Marc Ayrault, decides not to call for useful voting while the curves of Jospin and Le Pen are dangerously closer.On April 21, 2002, Lionel Jospin was beaten in the first round by Jean-Marie Le Pen.Broadcast two months later, the film is called as a thunderclap.The myth of a defeat, in short.
During the same campaign, Serge Moati, who was the first director in 1995 to blend with his camera in the campaign teams, is at the HQ of Jean-Marie Le Pen when he learns that he is qualified for theSecond round and where his silence shows, too, that he knows that the election is already lost.In his film, Moati also shows the other dynamic.That of the campaign, that which allows Jean-Marie Le Pen to be the surprise of this election.
Since this year 2002, the myth of politics has always been there.Way of telling the story being done.To give access to little known facets, but obviously prepared now, candidates or candidates.As if the image and access to behind the scenes now became a compulsory passage.As if this compulsory passage had simply become one of the facets of the great Netflix series like series, to which voters and electricities, viewers and viewers, Internet users, are invited.
The candidate series, self -produced by Macron teams during this campaign, is the climax of this myth.More cameras of journalists or chosen and briefed directors: the candidate's own cameras.You might as well self -produce the episodes of the show.
When the TV takes short the political
The viewer of the last thirty years often has the impression that the communication of politicians is locked by spin doctors who know the media codes and only authorize their foals to answer questions only when the answer is among the elements of language onlyThey prepared them.Between his sharp communicators and the journalists play a game of the cat and the insidious mouse, each trying to bring the other into their trap.In this game, the one who loses pays his defeat at a high price.
In 1994, the European elections fell little. Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, then president of France Télévisions and reputed to be close to circles of power, imposes on its writing a debate between Jean-Marie Le Pen and Bernard Tapie. We say the two very tense men ready to come to blows. Paul Amar refuses the proposal and resigns. But his teams ask him to stay. On the set, in order to avoid the bad blows, the journalist strikes the first and poses on the table of boxing gloves. From this evening, we only retained his gesture and the presence of these two red leather objects on the screen. For the first time on television is assumed the idea that a debate is no longer necessarily a battle of ideas between gentlemen, but a fight of words between boxers. The opponents no longer seek only victory, but the KO. However, that evening, it was the referee who lost his whistle. In the aftermath of his feat, he was asked to return them. Dismissed from his duties. Beaten in his own game.
Political programs have tried many times to modify the rules of the public debate in order to destabilize the political: questions asked by a panel of French on set, interviewed forced to stand up and without a desk, taken into account the reaction of Internet users, etc.None of his ingredients has never really changed the situation.Journalists often find themselves trapped by their own constraints: ethics, duty of neutrality, reserve, balance.The animators from entertainment, devoid of press card, embarrass less from these obligations.
Alerte rose. Tel est le nom de l’interview qu’entame Thierry Ardisson à l’endroit de Michel Rocard sur le plateau de « Tout le monde en parle » ce samedi soir de mars 2001. L’homme politique, mal aimé du grand public, est à la recherche de proximité et de popularité. Il se prête au jeu et répond avec malice aux questions osées de l’homme en noir. « Est-ce que sucer c’est tromper ? » Fait intéressant : personne ne s’offusque, ni pendant, ni après l’émission. Mais une semaine plus tard, un papier de Daniel Schneidermann dans Le Monde4Daniel Schneidermann, « Ma couille est l’histoire », Le Monde, 8 avril 2001. allume la mèche et la séquence devient polémique a posteriori. Elle représente aujourd’hui l’exemple le plus frappant du politique qui se prend les pieds dans le tapis du divertissement. S’il est possible d’inviter à la même table un homme d’État et une candidate de téléréalité, pourquoi ne pas leur poser les mêmes questions ? La brèche ouverte par Thierry Ardisson s’est muée au fil du temps en trou béant, toujours pas refermé à ce jour. Hommes et femmes politiques sont toujours aussi nombreux à se rendre sur les plateaux d’émissions de divertissement lorsqu’ils y sont invités. Sans doute parce qu’ils sont sûrs de ne plus y trouver d’homme en noir pour leur poser de questions trop (r)osées.
"Politainly": when entertainment transforms politics
Si le début du XXIesiècle a vu les élus et les gouvernants de tous bords participer à toutes sortes d’émissions, le petit écran a également su se plier à la singularité de ces invités et inventer un nouveau genre : le divertissement politique.
In 2017, C8, a modest TNT channel already dependent on Cyril Hanouna, seeks a way of talking about the presidential elections otherwise.Under the leadership of Mélissa Theuriau and Caroline Delage, an UFO appears in prime time." To the blackboard ".A class.Candidates for the most prestigious functions and, in front of them, around twenty children, seated very wisely, who ask them all the questions that their innocence authorizes.We remember the attempt of DAB of François Fillon, Benoît Hamon who dries on the works of Molière or Emmanuel Macron who explains the difference between right and left to velleda felt.Interesting fact: "on the board" is one of the few French programs that have exported all over Europe, with versions in Italy, Poland, or even in the Netherlands.
Un an plus tôt, une autre création française défraya la chronique. Confortablement installée dans un canapé cosy, Karine Le Marchand cherchait à soustraire aux candidats leurs ambitions intimes. Nicolas Sarkozy questionné par l’animatrice d’une émission de téléréalité (« L’Amour est dans le pré »), il n’en fallait pas plus pour jeter l’opprobre sur cette « dérive peopolitique » (Renaud Dély, directeur de la rédaction de Marianne)5Le JT de LCI, invités : Renaud Dély et Cécile Cornudet, 10 octobre 2016.. Invitée du JT de LCI, Cécile Cornudet, éditorialiste politique aux Echos, n’hésita pas à fustiger l’attitude de M6, qui « sert aux hommes politiques de la communication sur un plateau ». Ces cris d’orfraie servirent bien évidemment la campagne marketing de l’émission, dont le premier numéro attira plus de trois millions de curieux. La polémique, elle, ne permit pas de répondre à la question : suffit-il d’être titulaire d’une carte de presse pour être un bon interviewer ?
"On the board", "intimate ambition", today "facing Baba" respond to the same scheme: under the false pretext of democratizing democracy, we lower the debate within the reach of children, we reduce the ambitions to whatThey have more intimate, we put the candidate against the ultimate French: Baba.Is the influence of these emissions on the fate of the ballot boxes real or supposed?The question was already arising in 1995, when the news Guignols were accused of having allowed Jacques Chirac to win the elections while he was at the lowest a few months earlier.
Conclusion: political reality TV
"Where are you with your dad, Marine Le Pen?""," We applaud Marine Le Pen on Tiktok "," you have a steel mind, Marine Le Pen "... Declarations like this, there could be a very long list.They were pronounced by Cyril Hanouna, on March 16, 2022, in the C8 Politics program "against Baba" which he animates during this presidential election.
Cyril Hanouna is an entertainment host who poses as a political "interviewer".To question the candidates about their relationship to the father, on their mind and congratulate them on their Tiktok account.Over 1.5 million viewers have followed this program.They were 1.8 million for a program with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and 2 million for a program with Éric Zemmour.Audience levels which, if they remain below those of the France Télévisions Politics program "Élysée 2022" or TF1 "France in front of the war", are important enough to participate in the creation of aPolitical imagery on two -speed TV.
On the one hand, the policy treated in a serious, or at least institutional way;On the other, high policy to the rank of entertainment.In this war of attention, placing politics as entertainment is a way of trying to capture the audience.For better: give access to the greatest number to political debates, and also for the worst by devaluing political discourse and by putting it on the same level as the coat often present on the sets of these programs.
L’entremêlement du divertissement et du politique agit ainsi sur la vie politique comme un révélateur. Révélateur d’une nouvelle forme de représentation de la politique en général. « Il faut nourrir la bête », rappelait à propos des chaînes d’information le conseiller en communication de Nicolas Sarkozy, Franck Louvrier, à l’orée de la présidentielle 2012 alors que le président sortant s’apprêtait à affronter François Hollande. Nourrir la bête de l’information en continu, donc, dans une forme de « cérémonie cannibale », comme l’écrit le politologue Christian Salmon6Christian Salmon, La cérémonie cannibale, Paris, Fayard, 2007.. Mais il faut désormais aussi nourrir la bête de l’« infotainment ». Dans un entre-deux étonnant entre « peoplelisation », personnalisation à outrance, cultivation de l’émotion et mise en scène de sa vie. De « cérémonie cannibale », il est aussi question quand les politiques se targuent de vouloir investir tous les réseaux sociaux et se retrouvent, comme le ministre des Transports Jean-Baptiste Djebbari qui, avec 57 millions de vues sur ses vingt-six vidéos TikTok, est l’un des politiques qui maîtrise le mieux les codes de ce nouveau spectacle. Comme Jean-Luc Mélenchon ou Marine Le Pen d’ailleurs. Contrairement à d’autres politiques qui, eux, sont moins en vue ou ne parviennent pas à emporter l’engagement.
Cannibal ceremony also in YouTube programs, like that of Magali Berdah. An agent of reality TV personalities, Magali Berdah therefore becomes host of a "Political" program entitled "24 hours with" promising to "fight abstention by making the policy accessible and understandable". Magali Berdah recounts the genesis of her political program: "I am forty years old and I voted once to please my grandmother. I don't understand anything about politics, but I want to fight abstention. For this, she therefore imagined a YouTube device designed to make react on social networks. Basically, Berdah brings reality TV in politics. She starts from cliché questions that "everyone" is supposed to ask Eric Zemmour if he is racist or Jean-Luc Mélenchon if he does not like the rich and the police. In the device, everything is worth everything and nothing is really conflicting. As in the late "Loft Story", politicians come to the confessional ... and Magali Berdah, like Cyril Hanouna with Marine Le Pen, are not there to contradict and relaunch them, but indeed to animate a form of spectacle entirely dedicated to emotions and the supposed "common sense".
Admittedly, the news remains the source of majority information of 58% of French people, but it is interesting to see that among 18-24 year olds, social networks (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Tiktok) constitute the first source of information.Berdah before birch, in short!
Ainsi, le cheminement entamé en 1965 quand la télévision a fait son apparition dans la vie politique au grand dam du général de Gaulle est en train de s’achever. La télévision ou plutôt l’image n’est plus seulement un moyen de faire passer un message politique, elle est devenue un moyen de présenter un spectacle aux Français, futurs électeurs. « La réalité n’a aucune importance, c’est la perception qui compte », confiait à la romancière Yasmina Reza Laurent Solly, alors porte-parole du candidat Sarkozy en 2007, dans L’Aube le soir ou la nuit7Yasmina Reza, L’Aube le soir ou la nuit, Paris, Flammarion, 2007., son livre qui relate la campagne. La politique est bel et bien devenue une téléréalité, les électeurs des « téléspélecteurs » et la présidentielle une forme de « Koh-Lanta ».
