The national campaign control commission asked the candidate to remove some of his social media posts. The reason ? A mix of genres between candidate and president that the commission did not like.
On March 3, Emmanuel Macron raised doubts about his candidacy for the 2022 presidential election through a “letter to the French”. The document, published on the candidate’s campaign site, was also shared on his social networks, through Facebook and Twitter.
But on March 11, 2022, publications containing this famous letter were deleted from several networks, as were certain photos. The biography of Emmanuel Macron’s account has even been changed on Twitter. What happened to make these changes happen suddenly? The reason is to be sought on the side of the CNCCEP. The National Commission for the Control of the Electoral Campaign for the Presidential Election has indeed informed Emmanuel Macron’s teams that everything was not perfectly in order with the President’s accounts.
“Election propaganda”
For the CNCCEP, publications related to Emmanuel Macron’s campaign had no place on his official account, where he has shared since the start of his term of office his activities and actions as president.
In a press release published on its site on March 11, the commission explains that it observed that the message containing Emmanuel Macron’s Letter to the French ” related to electoral propaganda and that, given the characteristics of the use of this Twitter account, used for a long time and in a preponderant manner to relay messages relating to the exercise of his functions as President of the Republic, he was best not to use this account to post such messages. »
In its press release, the commission asks the president’s teams to ”refrain from using this account to disseminate messages relating to electoral propaganda during the campaign period », and to preferably use another account, dedicated to the campaign, in order to convey these messages.
Several messages removed and photos changed
The commission also specifies that the message was sent to the president’s teams on March 7. However, the tweet was still online on the morning of March 11, as journalist Alexandre Léchenet noted. The tweet was deleted shortly after.The President’s teams have therefore,it seems, waited until the last minute to clean up the president’s accounts.
If the tweet containing Emmanuel Macron’s campaign statement was the only one expressly mentioned in the CNCCEP message, it is not the only one to have been deleted.
Le Parisien thus noted that the message containing the “Letter to the French” has disappeared from Facebook and that the profile photos of Emmanuel Macron’s account on Instagram, Tiktok and Twitter have been changed: these are no longer images of candidate’s campaign, but of the president’s photo.
The biographies on these three social networks have also been changed: we can now read ” To follow the news of my campaign, go to @avecvous [son compte de campagne officiel, ndlr] “, whereas before, it was indicated that Emmanuel Macron was” candidate for a second mandate @avecvous “.
A situation that could affect the other candidates?
Emmanuel Macron might not be the only one in this situation: most candidates occupy an official political office, and do not use an account dedicated to their campaign to tweet. Valérie Pécresse is president of the Île-de-France region, Anne Hidalgo is mayor of Paris, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a deputy, Yannick Jadot is a European deputy, and all are in the same situation.
For the moment, the CNCCEP has not specified whether the other candidates could also be required to use other accounts. It remains clear, however, that as current president, Emmanuel Macron’s actions have more serious consequences.
This is the first time that such a situation has happened: in 2017, François Hollande, who was then the outgoing president, did not run, and in 2012, such a controversy did not take place.
Emmanuel Macron’s situation could certainly have been avoided: the president could have used the @Elysee accountthe “ official account of the Presidency of the French Republic and the Élysée Palace », sort of equivalent of @Potus American, and only keep his personal account to share less “presidential” messages.