french_election-2007.jpg With less than 100 days to go to the first round of the French Presidential elections, France2 along with Google Vidéo France has opened a website elections.france2.fr dedicated to the campaign. Along with a selection of the main stories from the biggest public daily news channel here in France, the site will also be showing amateur content sent in by viewers eager to play a part in the debate.

This is a major inroad from mainstream media. In a country where 9 million people consult at least one blog a month and half of those leave comments, the media can no longer afford to ignore the rapid growth of the French blogosphere, said to be the largest in Europe with the highest level of ‘internaute’ participation.

Neither, of course, can the politicians. It will come as no surprise that the principal candidates have all been busy in this domain. None more so than the candidate for the socialist party. According to Yves-Marie Cann of French pollster Ifop “Ségolène Royal has built her political strength outside the Socialist Party with her Web site ‘Desirs d’Avenir‘”

Desirsdavenir.org has coordinated over 700 local comities, the latest one has just been opened in Second Life! In a video placed on DailyMotion, Ségolène Royal inaugurates the 748th comity saying ‘…there will be participative debates about the presidential project… so come here in number and you will find me here” !
No virtual stone shall be left unturned, et pourquoi pas ?

As for Nicolas Sarkozy leader and candidate for the UMP, there is a flashy, professional looking site sarkozy.fr complete with a TV station – NSTV, a large digital clock countdown to the big day is displayed in milliseconds, there are podcasts and words & music to ‘go get ‘em sarko’ songs etc.

Politics meets web 2.0 what do you get? No clues now….. Politique2 – a new personalised start page inspired by the popular Netvibes. Syndicating over 850 political websites & blogs, hopefully it manages some neutrality in their presentation, it does seem pretty well pieced together.

Talking of neutrality, I should mention bayrou.fr, the website of François Bayrou, as he himself seldom forgets to mention his ‘mise à l’écart’ by the French media only interested, according to the UDF candidate, in a two horse race.

Even a quick glance at each of the 3 candidates’ websites is revealing in their stark portrayal of given clichés: Désirs d’Avenir is soft in appearance with clouds dissipating behind the title. Sarkozy.fr is more – business in the city, web 2.0 going on (le)web 3.0. Bayrou.fr, the candidate from the Midi-Pyrenees, is – feet on the ground, a little austere – more web 2.0 going on web 1.0.

sources – L’Atelier infodunet Neteco second life address SLObserver

For more precise information about the French political blogosphere see the Ifop-panel Maximiles report on the 2006 – 2007 presidential net-campaigne.