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146 | THE PROFESSIONALISM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

François Mitterrand’s era: triumph of political communication techniques
After the first attempts by Jean Lecanuet, Valery Giscard d’Estaing was one of the first
prominent French politicians to systematically organise his campaigns and his
communication according to modern professionalised political marketing. For instance,
when he became President, he was the first to establish a polling cell within the
presidential administration, located in the Palais de l’Elysée itself, the residence of the
French presidents. The cell was in charge of regularly supervising the image of the
President in French media and of ordering surveys from the pollsters whenever
necessary.

In the 1981 presidential election, when François Mitterrand was again running against
Valery Giscard d’Estaing, he had learned his lesson and he did not make the same
mistake of underestimating professionalised political communication. He hired one of
the best political marketing consultants at the time, Jacques Séguéla, a founder of one
of the most well-known advertising agencies, RSCG. He trusted him so much that he
agreed to dental surgery in order to erase the tip of his canines, which allegedly gave
him the look of a vampire when he opened his mouth too widely…

No campaign ever followed more closely the rules of professionalised political
communication than Mitterrand’s 1981 victory. His main slogan, ‘La Force Tranquille’
(The quiet strength), had been devised by Séguéla who had astutely taken into account
sociological research led by polling institute Cofremca: their thesis was that the ‘wild’
generation that had thrown pavement stones at policemen in 1968 had now
transformed into established bourgeois spouses with kids, enriched, furthermore, by
twenty years of money inflation which had considerably alleviated their bank debts.
This astute positioning proved right. It was supported by hundreds of posters all
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
around France: billboards showing Mitterrand in front of a ‘typical’French village, where
the local church bell tower was prominently displayed, in order to symbolically
summon traditional French values to the aid of the socialist leader.

Similarly, this time, the 1981 ‘decisive’ debate was much better prepared for by
Mitterrand. Weeks ahead, he had sent his communication advisors, including veteran
television director Serge Moatti, to meet Giscard d’Estaing’s team in order to agree on
an easier format, which would prevent any form of mutual interruption while the
politicians were speaking. The cameras were also constrained into scrupulously
shooting only the candidate who was speaking, without any insert of the face of his
opponent. The show’s director was not even allowed to change the live camera angle
without the authorisation of the two candidates’ own directors, who were sitting next
to him in the control room! The two moderators, journalists Michèle Cotta and Jean
Boissonnat, had also been chosen after agreement between the two teams. Comforted
by these precautions, Mitterrand, for the first time, fared much better than Giscard, and
the ‘decisive’debate was one of the cornerstones of his presidential victory.

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