Lhe eleventh presidential campaign is coming to an end. For months, the twelve candidates, then the two finalists (Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron), tried to convince the 48 million voters to vote for them. However, taking a look in the rear view mirror, there remains a taste of unfinished business. Like the impression that the campaign has not really started, that the big questions about the future of the country have been evaded and the debates purged. The clash between the two rounds was followed by only 15.6 million viewers and a strong abstention is to be feared on Sunday.
To judge this funny campaign, where television seemed to lose a little more its role of agora, we asked an old hand at information, Daniel Bilalian, to enlighten us in this democratic fog. The journalist, former presenter of 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. news for France 2 and election evenings, in particular the one which saw Benoît Duquesne chasing Jacques Chirac’s car on his motorcycle, returns to a presidential election which seems not to have taken.
Point : Is this presidential election a good vintage?
Daniel Bilalian: This 2022 vintage is very different from the previous ones, because external events meant that the campaign as we had imagined it did not take place. The war in Ukraine and the pandemic made the campaign unfold in a singular way. Moreover, with the number of continuous news channels that we have today plus social networks, political speech no longer has the rarity it once had. A presidential election is not so much an event of importance since the politicians are constantly expressing themselves. There is a trivialization and there is no more waiting. There are no more revelations and surprises.
We have even seen 8 p.m. newspapers not dealing with the presidential campaign the week of the first round…
There is a form of weariness. Political information in the proper sense is no longer necessarily a selling element. We are in a consumer society where the price of foodstuffs which will increase is more essential and daily than the promises of a man or a woman politician.
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Does this election mark the end of the dominance of television?
A few years ago, there were three television news bulletins, those of the one, the two and the three. Today, we are drowned in a continuous stream of information. There is no more waiting, we know everything in a second. A reaction or a short sentence pronounced in the afternoon is already known and analyzed dozens of times before the 20 hours. We are in the society of the immediate. That’s why a lot of politicians are careful what they say, because with the buzz you get crushed very quickly. Remember François de Rugy thanked for his duties as President of the National Assembly for a photo of lobster on his table. As if the President of the Assembly was going to offer garlic sausage to his guests.
The French are somewhat disillusioned.
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We are in a globalized society; European states, forced to come together to continue to exist, no longer have the leeway they had before. Today, a political leader, a president, no longer has the same freedom to make decisions; for example devalue its currency or nationalize the banks, as François Mitterrand did in 1981. Emmanuel Macron made this clear during the debate with Marine Le Pen. To exist in the face of the two giants, the United States and China, European states are forced to regroup. As a result, heads of state in Europe are a bit like property trustees who manage the moods of co-owners and seek a compromise to move forward. In fact, campaign issues are no longer as essential and important as before. During Wednesday’s debate, we were on technical considerations, not on a grand vision of the future of our country for the next twenty, thirty or fifty years. It was not lyrical: Emmanuel Macron played the professors and Marine Le Pen tried to show that she had learned well since 2017. The French are somewhat disillusioned. That’s why part of the French are passionate about Jean-Luc Mélenchon, because he says that politics can still have a hand. He embodied a hope while a number of his measures are difficult to apply.
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What did you think of Cyril Hanouna’s show, Facing Baba, which is the only media innovation of the campaign?
I’m pretty insensitive to that. For me, you have to separate entertainment from information. Admittedly, this attracts young people, but politics is something serious. Too serious to be taken lightly. This multitude of debates is in fact an exaggeration. An electoral campaign is: meetings, a debate between the two rounds and a few major broadcasts. The rest drowns out politics and makes a presidential election trivial.
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President Macron learned politics during these five years.
One of your colleagues has embarked on a presidential campaign: Éric Zemmour. How do you as a political journalist view this adventure which ended at 7% in the first round?
His campaign was successful in the beginning, whether we liked it or not, because he used words that some of us no longer dare to use. These words which cover a certain reality, sometimes exaggerated, but which other politicians no longer use for fear of shocking or being denounced on social networks. This relieved a number of people. Like when I hear the Head of State say, to speak of the flags lowered in Corsica following the death of Yvan Colonna: “It is not appropriate. “Not wiping your feet before entering someone’s house, yes, it’s inappropriate, but lowering the flags to pay tribute to someone who assassinated a prefect of the French Republic, it’s a little more than that… We are afraid of words today.
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Zemmour was ultimately the only blaster in the campaign…
He campaigned like the polemicist he is – and remains – with delicate subjects, such as immigration, insecurity, Europe…
And Emmanuel Macron? How do you judge it?
President Macron learned politics during these five years. This technocrat had never been elected. His expression has become more political. However, this campaign has not made it possible to take stock of the five-year term and to expunge the major quarrels of the last five years, due to the unprecedented situation constituted by the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. Another unprecedented situation: the two candidates from the two major historic parties – Valérie Pécresse and Anne Hidalgo – were not heard to do this critical work. It’s pretty unfair… but that’s how it is.
What question would the former presenter of the 13 hours and 20 hours that you are to Emmanuel Macron, before the second round?
I would ask him what being a patriot means to him today. In this globalized world, does that still make sense? I would love to hear his opinion.