Time’s up. At midnight tonight, all political campaigning must cease in France ahead of the first round of voting in the presidential elections. By French law, campaigns always end at midnight the Friday before the election. The reasoning behind this is so that there is one day without campaign-related messages before voters go to the polls. […]
Hundreds of thousands of French voters were captivated by Victoria Passage this week, the pretty blonde who appeared in a YouTube video confessing her crush for French leftist presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. (Read my previous post on the reasons why the clip became so popular in France). But days after the release of the video, […]
How do you reach out to the impoverished youth of Paris’ suburbs in order to gain their vote? By addressing them as “Niggas in Paris” and producing a flashy video, of course. At least, that’s what the people behind the campaign of Socialist candidate François Hollande seem to think. The video, which debuted yesterday, is titled […]
One of the best parts of presidential elections is the creativity of regular citizens who decide to produce clever videos that express voters’ feelings and attitudes towards the candidates using a good sense of humor. France is not the exception. Here is a list of some of the best viral videos of the French elections […]
**Update April 5, 2012: This blog post was featured on France 24 as part of their political coverage on April, 4 2012. —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————- French presidential candidate François Hollande took his campaign to a new level with the launch of a webradio show this week, called Radio Hollande. His web team announced its creation a fews days before its […]
(Note: This is part of a series that takes a close look at the web campaigns of the presidential candidates in France.) Socialist candidate François Hollande, who is currently leading the presidential race in the polls, demonstrates a strong presence on the web, thanks to his online team. In an interview to French magazine L’Express, Romain Pigenel, director […]
(Note: This is part of a series that will look closely at the web campaigns of the the main presidential candidates in France.) French president Nicolas Sarkozy is fighting for his reelection not only on the campaign trail, but also on the web. The mastermind behind Sarkozy’s web campaign is Nicolas Princen, his advisor for New Media […]
Update March 21, 2012: This blog post was featured on France 24 as part of their political coverage on March 20, 2012. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————- Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey paid a visit to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and in the process, invented the tweet-meeting. It all started with this first tweet from Sarkozy’s Twitter account saying: “I will […]
Válerie Trierweiler, the girlfriend of French presidential candidate François Hollande, apparently became so upset upon finding her image splashed on the front page of Paris Match, that she took to Twitter to publicly express her fury. The French magazine, which she happens to write for, published a photo of her and Hollande with the headline: […]
In a shocking pro-euthanasia campaign released on Wednesday, French president Nicolas Sarkozy is portrayed as a dying patient in a hospital bed in an effort to convince him to change his current stand against the legalization of euthanasia in France. The text above the disturbing image reads: “Mr. Candidate, Must we put you in such a […]
The Right has taken a hold of France for too long and it’s time to change. That is the growing sentiment among the French, according to Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center of Political Research at Sciences Po University in Paris. I had the pleasure of interviewing Perrineau this week and we talked about how […]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy finally joined Twitter on Wednesday. Better late than never! “Good day to you all, I’m very happy today to launch my Twitter account, thank you to all of those who would like to follow me,” he said in his first tweet, using his official Twitter handle @NicolasSarkozy. Sarkozy then appeared on TF1, […]
Equal access. That’s all French disabled voters want. But, what exactly does equal access mean? It means to be able to exercise their right to vote as any other French citizen would, without any constraints, by having all the tools and modifications available for them to do so. The Unapéi, National Union of Associations of Parents […]
Can you imagine not being able to vote because you can’t even get through the door of the polling site? What would you do if you couldn’t elect your favorite candidate because you can’t even read the ballot? And what if you couldn’t even vote for anyone because, when you tried watching them on TV […]
First, the figures. More than 43.2 million French people are registered to vote, according to a report by the INSEE, the (French) National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. But what are French voters really like? As far as age, the majority of French voters are 50 years and older. Only about a quarter are […]
There are less than 100 days left until the election of the president of the French Republic and the seat is still up for grabs. As of the writing of this post, Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party is leading the polls over current president Nicolas Sarkozy. But there are other candidates, Marine Le Pen of […]
France Elects 
April 20, 2012
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