Douglas Pécresse, Montebourg Télécom, Lassalle at the bars… The 10 funniest moments of the presidential campaign

“What a funny campaign!” You must have heard this phrase in recent weeks. The campaign would have been funny. It must be taken in its second meaning, synonymous with bizarre or astonishing. For some, like Jean Lassalle, it was “a shitty campaign”. For others, like Philippe Poutou, “there was no campaign at all”. Yet, and despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, soaring prices, the resurgence of Covid-19, the threat of the far right and the climate catastrophe, the campaign has sometimes been funny. This time, in its original sense. She offered us scenes that were sometimes rather quirky, sometimes downright embarrassing. Freed offers you a top 10.

1. The campaign of Pécresse has dog

Who could have foreseen it? The biggest laughter of the campaign came from old-fashioned political shenanigans, out of which emerged a dog named Douglas. End of February, Release revealed that the primary organized by LR, which saw Valérie Pécresse triumph, “was tainted by fraudulent maneuvers aimed at inflating the electorate”. Among the adherents who joined the right-wing party in 2021, “some do not exist or no longer exist”. Including Douglas, canine from Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur pro-Eric Ciotti. It would have been registered by its owner. “No one met him in a meeting, and he never commented on the campaign on social networks”wrote our journalist, Dominique Albertini.

In the aftermath, montages and other diversions flourished, a parody account was created, to which more than 30,000 people quickly subscribed. At the maneuver, we find many supporters of Eric Zemmour who saw there the opportunity to destabilize Valérie Pécresse. Even funnier (or sad, it depends): the defense of Senator LR Philippe Bas. Invited to justify himself at the microphone of Public Senate, the elected official of La Manche explained: “If someone registered their dog, the dog couldn’t vote.” For a simple and, it must be said, good reason: “Because the dog does not know how to read the code number which is sent by SMS to his mobile phone”. Pécresse must have whistled the end of recess: “To fall so low is not worthy, it is not serious”.

2. Arnaud Montebourg hanging on the phone

He was ready to do anything for the union of the left. Even to take the risk of appearing ridiculous. At the beginning of December, feeling his candidacy floating, Arnaud Montebourg took his phone. One by one, he called the other left-wing candidates, from Anne Hidalgo to Yannick Jadot, via Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Fabien Roussel. The problem: no one answered his calls.

The former Minister of the Economy and cantor of made in France fell, each time, on the answering machine and therefore had to leave a message. “Let’s talk during the day, that would be really helpful”he said to one. “Call me quickly, it would be nice to talk to each other. Friendships», he blurts out to another. Videos of these empty calls have been derided. The union of the left failed and Arnaud Montebourg returned to his bees.

3. Christiane Taubira’s talk about housing

Had she worked the file enough? In front of an audience of specialists brought together by the Abbé-Pierre Foundation on February 7, Christiane Taubira was questioned about her housing program. Except that nothing went as planned for the candidate nominated by the popular Primary a few days earlier. When his interlocutor points out to him that “If we increase the RSA by 30%, people still remain below the poverty line”Taubira takes the microphone in hand and starts: “Uh, yes but uh… We add to it, we add to it here, we can add the APL on the one hand. And then uh, and then uh, I consider that there is a need to review all the social minima. A “shipwreck” some scoff. As for the public in the room, they are invited to describe in a word the proposals presented by Taubira. “Fuzzy” comes back the most, before “rough draft”, “BLA bla”, “hollow” and “imprecise”. The sentence is cruel.

4. Eric Zemmour sent back to the locker room by Zidane

Raised socks, cleats and blue shorts put on. He was ready for the fight. On April 2, the far-right candidate started an indoor football match in a sports complex in Aix-en-Provence with some of his local supporters. But not everything went as planned and the former polemicist had to interrupt his game. At issue: the presence of cameras, which the stadium managers were apparently unaware of. The one who kicked Eric Zemmour out is none other than Noureddine Zidane, Zinédine’s brother. “We were not warned that it was for a meeting”, argues a man also present. What was supposed to look like a well-oiled com streak ended in humiliation. Zemmour returned to get dressed in the locker room.

5. Valérie Pécresse, Jedi master(s)

In a political discourse, it is often risky to push the comparison too far. The candidate LR, however, rushed, head down, on February 10 during the presentation of the Trombinoscope prize, which rewards the best political figures each year. At the desk, and without anyone launching her on the subject, Pécresse began her speech by explaining: “This campaign is a bit star Wars.» Before, staring into the air, to launch into the enumeration of his adversaries in a way Star Wars. “There’s the Phantom Menace. It’s the left.” Then : “There are the empire strikes back. It’s Macron. Finally, the empire would still have to attack. A few embarrassed laughs are heard in the room.

“There are attack of the clones.» Silence. A second. Two seconds. Three seconds of silence. “It’s Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen”, ends up letting go of Pécresse, with a facial grimace that only she is capable of making. Always so sure of herself, the president of the Ile-de-France region has reached the point that we all expected. And her in all this? “Well, you have understood that I am the Return of the Jedi. There. Because I want to raise a new hope, as the end of the saga says. It was two months ago. An eternity in a campaign.

6. Anne Hidalgo discovers small stations

There are videos of which only the mayor of Paris has the secret. During a trip to the Drôme in October, Anne Hidalgo is filmed in front of an ATM. All smiles, she says to the camera: “Good, then, I am at the station of Saint-Vallier. And I can tell you one thing, first of all, Saint-Vallier is very beautiful.” She raises her thumbs up as if to show the distributor behind her: “When machines replace humans, it’s not okay, what.” Before leaving the camera field with a simple “thank you” almost embarrassed.

Social networks are racing, the video is looping. Hidalgo lands in the small stations and discovers the existence of “machinery” ? The message is devastating for the one who seeks at all costs to get rid of her image as the disconnected mayor of Paris. Hidalgo’s dazed tone seems just as quirky. The video falls flat. “No one told him that at Gare du Nord there are also some”, underlines a user. Backfire.

7. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s “grilled steak”

His passion is not new. After becoming a video game character and having multiplied thanks to holograms for the first time in 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon wanted to push the technology cursor a little further… with less success. In January, he organizes a big meeting “immersive” In Nantes. The rebellious candidate resumes the professorial air that had made him successful five years earlier, evoking the destiny of the Earth, the sea and space. With a particularity: his speech is “olfactory”. Except that at the exit, the opinions are mixed. So, what does space smell like? “Grilled steak” for some people, “gunpowder” for others. Spectators even talk about the smell of “raspberry” or of “rum”. For the candidate who wants to fight against junk food, this great culinary hodgepodge is not in the best taste.

8. Jean Lassalle, one night DJ in Toulouse

The entire campaign of Jean Lassalle could be singled out. We will remember two particularly significant moments. The first, when the deputy of Pyrénées-Atlantiques embarked on a tour of bars in Toulouse. It was October and he was surrounded by students. If at the start the objective was indeed to “outline” of his project as he affirmed to Toulouse news, the evening quickly turned into a giant aperitif where the participants jostled to get their photo with Jean Lassalle. Impossible for the candidate to stop on such a good path. So he joined another bar, called the Color of the panties – you can’t make it up – and put on DJ headphones to do the musical entertainment. Photos were taken and posted on Instagram. It had to be immortalized.

9. “The surprise interview” of the candidates summoned “On the board”

Yannick Jadot unable to place the European capitals? Eric Zemmour unaware that the Veil law was passed on January 17, 1975? Valerie Pécresse who “do not know how many people there are in Russia” ? All this, we know thanks to the show To the blackboard, first aired in 2017, which made a comeback this year. The very principle of the program is debatable: children question candidates for the presidential election about their program, their ideas, their past declarations and give them a “surprise question”. All this in a reconstituted class. At the end, there is a giant selfie. And with an Instagram filter please.

10. Emmanuel Macron the anti-capitalist?

It’s a sentence that no one saw coming. Emmanuel Macron, who was holding his only campaign rally on Saturday at La Défense, said: “Our lives are worth more than all the profits.” The context: he was talking at that time about the Orpea scandal and the revelations around cases of abuse in certain private nursing homes. For those who have a minimum of political culture, the sentence does not lack salt. It is a pure and simple resumption of the historic slogan of Olivier Besancenot’s New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). Despite a notable change: “their profits” became “all proceeds” after going through the macronist grinder. Philippe Poutou, also a candidate for the presidential election, quipped on France Inter: “If we had known, we would have patented it, it would have brought us money.” As if to return to the political field, he also denounced “the cynicism of these people, who have always played the game of capitalism and who use NPA slogans”.