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French public sphere. But we will then try and assess if the cycle has not now come to
an end: some legal measures have been enforced in order to contain the excesses of
modern communication, while, in some cases, political communication might be seen
as one of the causes of the defeat of some politicians.

We will also notice that professionalised political communication has not limited its
effects to elections only, but has had an influence on the whole French democratic
system,and on its balance of power.

PROFESSIONALISATION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION SINCE THE SIXTIES: FIGHTING FOR
THE BEST POLITICAL MARKETING CONSULTANT…
From ‘Mister X’ to Valery Giscard d’Estaing: the increasing presence of professionalised
political communication
Some have forgotten the first true appearance of modern ‘professionalised’ political
marketing techniques in France: in September 1963, journalist Jean Ferniot started a
teasing campaign in the weekly magazine L’Express intended to put in orbit socialist
politician Gaston Deferre for the presidential election to come two years later. Titled
‘Monsieur X… contre De Gaulle’ (Mister X… against de Gaulle), the paper started to
elaborate on which qualities a politician should possess to be the best candidate
against General de Gaulle, the then incumbent President of the French Republic. From
week to week the news magazine deliberately kept composing the portrait of an ‘ideal’
political leader, who was in the end disclosed as being Gaston Deferre, Mayor of
Marseilles .

Ultimately Deferre did not run in 1965, leaving room for François Mitterrand, and,
probably because there was no concrete presidential candidacy outcome from this
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
‘teasing’, the introduction of modern political marketing techniques has become more
often associated with the good results obtained by Jean Lecanuet, a then unknown
centrist politician. He had hired, as his main advisor, a promising marketing consultant,
Michel Bongrand, who had spent several months in Joe Napolitano’s staff in the United
States learning the new rules of the game. For the first time in modern history, French
voters were presented with the image of a ‘smiling’ politician on political posters, with
such a Hollywood-like grin that Jean Lecanuet was immediately nicknamed ‘dents
blanches’(white teeth) by journalists and opponents alike!

At the time, since French radio and television were still a State monopoly, it had been
ruled that politicians competing for an election could not buy advertising spots, or any
other kind of televised show, but would be granted free airtime on an equal basis
within ‘official campaign programmes’. Again advised by Bongrand to strongly
differentiate himself from De Gaulle, Lecanuet kept building the same kind of image
with his first statement in these programmes. His opening words were ‘I am Jean
Lecanuet, I am an ordinary French citizen, not a hero’, and so on, in a familiar tone never
before employed by French politicians.
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