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THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH POLITICAL COMMUNICATION | 153

results by a plain repositioning on the left side of the political chessboard. While the
two far-left competitors of Jospin in 2002, Arlette Laguiller from Lutte Ouvrière (LO) and
unknown newcomer Olivier Besancenot, from the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire
(LCR), had managed to attract about 10% of the voters, an unusually high figure, and
double their ‘normal’ result, they returned to the norm in 2004, leading once more to a
socialist party in full power,even when still bereft of the former leader.

So the 2002 Jospin campaign, which was meant as a ‘conquest campaign’ as
demonstrated in political marketing books, clearly misfired – probably because of
mistaken field analysis. Not only did Jospin not convince his own to vote for him by
denying his socialist past, but he had also failed to convince his new target. By not even
defending his left wing mandate achievements at the start of the campaign, somehow
Jospin appeared insincere – quite an image problem for someone whose posters were
claiming that he would be ‘a better President’.

These campaigning mistakes were obvious to the average citizen because a new
phenomenon had appeared and clearly impeded Jospin. French media coverage is now
more and more focused on the campaign itself. Somehow, the accomplishment of the
professionalisation of the political communication process in France has been that
campaigning and campaigning techniques by themselves have become news items,and,
in particular, have benefited from a strong agenda effect during the 2002 campaign, thus
immediately exposing the slightest mistake of the competing politicians – and here
Jospin was a first-rate target because his targeting choice had put him on a wrong foot.
This came as a logical consequence of the ‘coming out’of political marketing consultants.
Led by Jacques Séguéla’s bold media exposure in the past two decades, it had been
followed by most of his main competitors,who wrote numerous books based on the past
campaigns,insisting on their ‘part’in the election of the politicians they had been working
for,and therefore increasing the public awareness of campaigning techniques. The Evolution of French Political Communication: Reaching the Limits of Professionalisation?

In a way, Lionel Jospin had gone over the line by over-excessively professionalising his
campaign: following too exclusively the precepts of well-organised political marketing
techniques, he had lost his authenticity in the eyes of his potential voters, and therefore
their support

An excessive trust for the pollsters: professionals also make mistakes…
A final factor that can be noticed about French political communication is the
enormous confidence politicians and media alike are still giving to public opinion polls
in spite of several severe mishaps. At least twice in recent years front runners have been
severely beaten because of an ill-placed trust in public opinion polls, and this on-going
blindness raises questions about their ability to work without a safety net.

The first case of an excessive trust in the public opinion polls occurred in 1997, when
President Jacques Chirac decided with his then Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, to call a 155