She is using a queen bee strategy. You have a site and the whole blogosphere of Ségolenites are linking to it and creating a buzz around it. Everyone is talking about her and her programme.
Queen bee ‘Ségo’ creates a buzz online
By John Thornhill in Paris
Published: April 20 2006 19:10 | Last updated: April 20 2006 19:10
Ségolène Royal’s opinion poll ratings have surged ahead of all the other likely candidates for next year’s French presidential elections partly thanks to her innovative campaigning style on the internet and in magazine interviews.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of the ruling UMP party and most probable standard bearer for the French right, was the second most popular politician, with 30 per cent.
The prospect of a “Sarko-Ségo” battle between two such contrasting and colourful personalities has already captivated the French media. But early favourites in French presidential races have rarely won.
In spite of her popularity, Ms Royal faces ferocious opposition from rival Socialist candidates – possibly including her partner, François Hollande, the party secretary – to clinch her party’s nomination.
Ms Royal’s popularity appears partly due to her novelty as a serious female candidate – the former environment minister appeared on the cover of five magazines last week – as well as her maverick campaigning style. Ms Royal has launched a website called desirsdavenir.org (desires for the future), encouraging the public to contribute to a “participative forum” and promising to adopt the best ideas.
Her critics have argued that her “wiki-programme” has only exposed the hollowness of her ideology but it has certainly aroused the interest of France’s internet users.
Stanislas Magniant, co-founder of Netpolitique.net, a French political website, said: “What she is doing is very smart because she is demonstrating that she is listening. That speaks volumes at a time when the French people think that they are not heard. She is using a queen bee strategy. You have a site and the whole blogosphere of Ségolenites are linking to it and creating a buzz around it. Everyone is talking about her and her programme.”
Mr Magniant predicted that the web could be a vital political battleground, given the explosion of the French blogosphere over the past year and the unrestricted nature of internet debate compared with the highly regulated mainstream media.
Mr Sarkozy has also been exploring the political cyberspace and earlier this year gave a much-noted podcast interview to Loïc Le Meur, one of France’s most popular bloggers.
Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said there was a bias against regulating political activity on the internet in western democracies given the ease of publishing material. But he said internet users had become sophisticated at distinguishing between genuine grassroots debate and political propaganda. “The online world is very good at determining the difference between grassroots and Astroturf,” he said.
Ms Royal has been unafraid to make bold proposals to position herself in the political centre. In February she provoked howls of protests from rival Socialist party leaders when, in an interview with the FT, she praised some of the policies pursued by Tony Blair, the UK prime minister. Many French socialists regard Mr Blair’s economic policies as being unacceptably “liberal”.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the former centre-right prime minister, said Ms Royal should not be underestimated, suggesting she was making a real attempt to stake out the centre ground.
However, he added: “Her ideas, which she has largely borrowed from Tony Blair, do not seem to me to be compatible with the Socialist party’s increasing drift to the left.”