The tone is rising in the home stretch of the campaign for the second round of legislative elections. Nevertheless, the observation of the results of the first round seems to indicate a certain resilience of the electorate in the face of the candidates of the conspiracy, those who devote most of their interventions on the networks to spreading fake news and conspiratorial theses. The best known of them will not reach the second ballot, they have already suffered a crushing defeat.
2.3% for the singer Francis Lalanne various unclassifiable candidate in Charente, 4.62% for the leader of the party Les patriotes Florian Philippot candidate in Moselle, and 5.38% for the outgoing deputy Martine Wonner of Bas-Rhin, too unclassifiable diverse candidate. It is a major defeat for these figures of the conspiracy, a failure widely commented on social networks and also in the mainstream media.
The buzz does not make the vote…
These personalities have gained a certain media notoriety through the demonstrations against health measures, and won a large audience on social networks. But this visibility did not translate into votes. Florian Philippot 344,000 followers on Twitter, collects barely more than a thousand votes in MoselleMartine Wonner 144,000 subscribers, totals 2,494 votes in his constituency of Bas-Rhin. As for Frances Lalanne, he obtained 953 votes in Charenteand his outrages led to the suspension of his Twitter account, for having notably equated vaccination with a “ crime against humanity “. Above all, the common point of these personalities is their ability to strike minds with publications with misleading content. We found them in the same anti-mask, anti-vax demonstrations, leading a veritable crusade against any health measure aimed at curbing the Covid-19 epidemic, defending remedies that are not even on the benches of the Assembly and flirting with theses according to which the elites would take advantage of the pandemic to impose population control, of a dictatorial nature, and would even seek to obtain the elimination of part of the population by the vaccine.
…but fake news feeds abstention
Many are delighted to see that these conspiracy theses do not succeed in the voting booth. The electoral failure of their most ardent defenders would be good news. But that is to forget the record abstention rate: more than 52%. This is not to say that every abstentionist is a potential conspirator, but on the contrary, it is obvious that the most convinced followers of the conspiracy have a propensity to reject everything they perceive as belonging to the ” system”, including the electoral system. We even saw among the candidates, the former convict, Germain Gaiffe – nicknamed ” the butcher of Montauban presenting himself while calling for a null vote to be able to challenge the legitimacy of the vote. He still won 59 votes.
Democratic life under threat
But the electoral failure of the followers of conspiracy seems to have no effect on the networks where they continue to deploy all their energy for future mobilizations. All are aiming for what they call the third round, in the street, and for some, the revival of the yellow vests movement.
Some do not recognize the electoral failure of their leaders, this is the case of the most radical supporters of Eric Zemmour, whose Reconquest party is new on the political scene. The artificial amplification of its communication on the networks is however at the origin of the gap between the perception of its militants and the weakness of the results of the vote, from the presidential election. Social networks distort reality to the point of distorting public debate and disorienting a growing part of the electorate.
The mix of genres
There remain certain candidates in the running, among the occasional plotters. This is the case of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan who plays on several registers of the manipulation of information. The leader of the Debout la France party, which went so far as to double the number of migrants entering Europe during a debate for the Europeanscomes first in the legislative elections in Essonne where he has formed an alliance with the Patriots, the party of Florian Philippot, very advanced in the spread of infox.
There are a few in all parties, politicians who practice the use of these theories on an ad hoc basis, on issues such as immigration, security, the environment, and who proceed by amalgams to attract voters. Covid skeptics, climate skeptics or other Eurosceptics, their aim is to systematically sow doubt about the responses used to deal with health or environmental emergencies.
On the contrary, it also happens that candidates abuse this qualification of conspiracy in order to discredit a political adversary and avoid the debate. It’s a flaw that we sometimes observe in the ranks of the outgoing majority.