The enveloppe

[chani]

That's it, it has arrived. I found the enveloppe in my mail box this afternoon. Inside there were the 12 ballots and the 12 propaganda information letters from our 12 candidates. They are A3 size, folded in two, which gives 4 pages. The first page usually shows the poster of the candidate as it appears on streets.

So I've decided to scan them for you and post here my analysis. I will mostly parse the first page of each letter for I'm sure it's the most important part of their propaganda. 
Since there are 4 days left I will do 3 candidates per day following the alphabetical order. Feel free to play along and give your insight ! I'm sure that everybody could come up with interesting stuff even though you aren't French citizens and perhaps for that very reason.

Let's start with B...

So the first candidate is François Bayrou. Here's the first page of his letter:



He chose a big picture of himself which plays on the idea that he's the man we need.  The dark suit and the tie are an obvious symbol of authority, of law (it has alawys been that way in cards-reading and on medieval paintings) but the shirt with blue stripes softens his look and matches the blue sky behind him. If you look at the poster closely there's a bit of a landscape behind him on the right, obviously showing the countryside to which Bayrou claims to belong (so many years ago Mitterrand also played on that country card). There's still a bit of a farmers' lobby in France...Besides a big candidate is supposed to have a geographical/electoral stronghold.

The handwritten text adds to the personalization of the poster and makes him closer to the voters, turning this propaganda into a wannabe epistle. It's an old trick in politics. He uses the future in the sentence, showing a certain amount of self-confidence here: "I will be the president who will gather the French people to make them live together". There he establishes a direct link between him and the nation. It's very De Gaulle-like. Accoridng to the constitution as De Gaulle inspired it in 1958, the President is supposed to be above all the parties, not to be the representant of one party.

The text below his name(The France of all our forces) also suits his political theme of "neither left nor right" but gathering people from everywhere. The font is yellow/orange suggesting sunny future and success. His attitude and body language are interesting. He's a centrist and therefore his being is everywhere! His body (head, torso) is mostly on the left BUT the text with his signature is on the right, the landscape is on the right and his hands are also on the right. 

The joined hands may represent the political gathering he's asking for in his bottom message but they are centred on the right side of the poster which totally fits in Bayrou's political position, right-centre. The gesture seems to suggest that he's determined (a fist in the hand!) but level-handed. It is also a good way to show his wedding ring and play on a conformist ground. Bayrou is a Catholic !

There's probably more to interpret (the use of his dimples maybe?)but I'm done.



So who wants to play? I will post the two other posters later and we'll analyze them together. Okay?

I know, I know it's a very teacher thing to do, but I don't have my students at hand these days so bear with me.
 

Comments

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

No it wasn't, but they made it feel toward the public like it could be a presidential where the sitting president is going for their second term...