EPISODE 10/10.
What images will remain of the electoral campaign?
Meetings, travel, televised debate... In politics, to convince is to seduce, and especially during an election period.
Whether we like it or not, the battle for image remains paramount.
How do the candidates build their image and manage (or not) to impose themselves?
Back to the 2017 election campaign.
At the end of 2016, François Fillon, winner of the right-wing primary, is the favorite to succeed François Hollande who has decided not to run for a second term.
While the former Prime Minister of Nicolas Sarkozy is already given for winner, the Penelope Fillon affair cuts his candidacy in full flight, leaving a boulevard to Emmanuel Macron, the former Minister of Finance of François Hollande, on the march for some months already for the presidential election.
Fillon's impossible campaign
April 6, 2017. After the casseroles, then the egg throws in Biarritz, here is the flour.
Arriving at the Strasbourg Exhibition Center to hold a meeting there, the former Prime Minister is floured by a young man who pretended to be an activist.
Julien SENGEL / AFP
After the revelations of the Canard Enchaîné, François Fillon nevertheless maintains his candidacy.
For the one who was nicknamed "
Mister Clean
", campaigning becomes almost impossible.
The Penelope Gate affair is a real explosion for the image of the winner of the primary from the right, hitherto perceived as honest and upright.
Weighed down by this file and communication errors, he is unable to recover.
The Trocadero meeting in early March in front of his supporters allowed him to stabilize his voting intentions.
But he did not qualify for the second round and finished just behind Marine Le Pen.
March 5, 2017. Popular rally in support of Francois Fillon, at the Trocadéro, in Paris.
Jean-Christophe Marmara / Le Figaro
Macron the
“
new
” man
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron the outsider is gradually becoming the favorite.
The 38-year-old former minister of François Hollande plays on his figure as a “ new
” and “
breaking
” politician
.
He, a young 39-year-old candidate, appears with his wife Brigitte, 20 years his senior.
“Macron largely benefited from the fact that voters wanted to see an outsider win.
He hadn't been there long.
It perfectly met this expectation,”
comments Christophe Piar, specialist in political communication.
The presidential candidate for En Marche!, Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Trogneux on a chairlift in the Pyrenees, April 12, 2017. Eric Feferberg / POOL / AFP
Locked communication?
His image, he controls it.
Too perhaps judge the press photographers who are kept at a distance during its meetings.
“
We had to expend a lot of energy for a side step.
We were relayed at 25 meters.
We had to work with a telephoto lens
,
”
recalls, a little exasperated, photojournalist Claude Coutausse.
Only a few privileged people, such as the photographer Soazig de la Moissonnière, who will also become his official photographer at the Élysée, have access.
She alone manages to immortalize - and magnify - behind the scenes of Emmanuel Macron's campaign.
In France, she is compared to Pete Souza, famous photographer of Barack Obama.
"
It's in a way, a way to control your image, to privatize it to better control it
“, comments the photographer Eliot Blondet, of the Abaca agency, who has followed Emmanuel Macron since his entry into the Elysée.
This mastery of the image will continue at the Palais with "
Mimi
", the nickname of Michèle Marchand, boss of Bestimage, a press agency that reigns over the people photo market and advises Brigitte Macron... on her image!
Bestimage is also a member of the very official presidential press liaison committee which organizes the “
pools
” of accredited photographers to accompany the president.
An ambiguous position that challenges.
February 4, 2017 in Lyon, meeting of Emmanuel Macron, at the Palais des Sports de Gerland.
Lafabregue/ANDBZ/ABACAPRESS.COM
Melenchon innovates
During this 2017 campaign, on the far left and the far right, the candidates, each in their own way, also worked on their image.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon innovates by doubling live during his meetings.
He broadcasts his campaign on social networks via a hologram.
“
He thus gives himself an image of modernity.
All the more necessary for him, because he has been present in French political life for a long time
, ”underlines Christophe Piar.
Fourth man of this election, he obtains important scores among the young electorate.
February 5, 2017. The candidate of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon holds a meeting in La Plaine Saint-Denis, in the north of Paris.
His hologram appeared in Lyon and Paris at the same time.
Thomas SAMSON / AFP
At the other end of the political spectrum, the National Front candidate, Marine Le Pen, has also worked on her image.
Since 2012 she has started a company of "de-
demonization
" of her image and in ideological terms.
Its strategy: proximity.
“
She is in the demonization from the start.
Then she is forced to return to her fundamentals in the home stretch.
At the risk of giving the impression of an inconstant candidate,
” observes Christophe Piar.
Marine Le Pen manages to qualify for the second round.
For the first time under the Fifth Republic, no candidate from a traditional party (PS/LR) succeeded.
During the televised debate against Emmanuel Macron, she fails to convince.
Viewers witness a degradation of its image in just over 2 hours.
Le Figaro
describes this debate as “unprecedented brutality”, “
which often lacked height
” during which “
the leader of En Marche!
dominated his adversary on economic issues
”.
He wins in the second round 66% against 33% for his opponent.
April 23, 2017. Emmanuel Macron is qualified in the first round against Marine Le Pen.
The second round takes place on May 7.
From Russian Axelle/ABACA
A victory that he had anticipated by going to celebrate his qualification in the second round at the Rotonde, a Parisian brasserie.
The evening is talking.
It recalls Nicolas Sarkozy's evening at Fouquet's on the evening of his victory.
But unlike his predecessor, Macron will not be taken back.
