The televised debate of the second round of the presidential election was particularly followed on social networks with a proliferation of “memes”. These quirky and humorous images, which have long allowed Internet users to comment on a large number of online topics, are now used in a political context.
The term “meme” was coined by British biologist Richard Dawkins in one of his books. It is the deformation of the word mimesis which means “imitation” in ancient Greek. On the Web, the phenomenon represents all the replications of an idea or a concept as a tweet published ” in the way of “, a video parody or an image diverted from its context about an emblematic or famous character.
It is difficult to determine whether these online caricatures are truly effective in supporting or tarnishing the image of political candidates with voters.
The debate in the second round of the presidential election was no exception. Internet users were on the lookout for the slightest posture or the little murderous phrases that the candidates threw at their heads. ” I think they… Love each other! » immediately publishes a « twittos » with the image of the poster of the play by Palmade and Laroque, to signify that the debaters of the second round are the same as in 2017. But at the start of the confrontation, Internet users had difficulty in caricaturing the fairly civilized verbal exchanges of the two candidates. Many then attack the journalists on the set. Léa Salamé and Gilles Bouleau are the subject of many photo montages accompanied by acerbic comments.
Anyone have any news from Gilles Bouleau? You’d have to pinch his arm to make sure he’s still moving… #debatmacronlepen
—Nils Wilcke (@paul_denton) April 20, 2022
But the controversial “memes” end up arriving, however, when the tone begins to rise between the two protagonists. In particular with the image of Marine Le Pen brandishing an old tweet, printed on an A4 sheet and dating from 2014, in which she was in favor of an independent Ukraine. A video sequence that gave rise to multiple diversions throughout the evening.
Some expressions used by Emmanuel Macron have also been the subject of caricatures. The first, when he mentioned France’s place in the European Union. ” We can decide to rip the facade alone, but it’s a condominium “, he says. Something to make many Internet users laugh, who did not know the meaning of the word ripoliner! “ It’s not Gérard Majax, tonight “, Continues the outgoing president on the issue of unemployment. The name of the star magician of the 80s quickly became a trending topic on Twitter with multiple illustrations.
I would rather say: “ripoliner is the new croquignolesque, Gérard Majax is the new (or the old, up to you!) powder of perlimpinpin”#debatmacronlepen
— Thomas Garreau ?? ?? (@ThomasGarreau5) April 20, 2022
The formula “ climatohypocrite by Marine Le Pen then scores points with a series of photo montages.
According to Visibrain, a social media monitoring tool, the inter-round debate generated 1,700,000 messages posted on social media, with 132 posts per second at the peak of activity.