If you’ve ever spent time in France, you might have noticed the lack of French political advertisements on television. This is by design. Beginning in the 1990’s, France has made efforts to limit the impact of big money in politics, completely banning political advertising on TV and radio broadcasts. Today, the media landscape has changed and researchers must keep pace with the new formats of political communication, which has embraced social media leads as its new medium.
Political Polarization in France
Since the turn of the 21st century, the French political system has endured a number of transformations, including shifts in public sentiment over consequential issues like social and economic inequality, immigration, and integration into the EU. As new political forces have emerged, including the liberal La République En Marche! and the far-right National Rally, more established parties like the centre-left Socialists and the centre-right Republicans have struggled to maintain their footing.
These shifts have led France into an era of uncertainty, where new ideological movements challenge the stability of France’s Fifth Republic. The emergence of social media has been regarded as one of the driving factors in the fracturing of French political ideology, driving polarisation in ways similar to other liberal democracies.
Facebook Losing Relevance
As French political parties and elected officials increasingly embrace social media in their messaging, many organisations have likewise employed new strategies for combating mis- and disinformation. To draw further insights on issues surrounding online disinformation and political messaging in France, we spoke with Laure Paradis, the project officer of VoxPublic, an independent organisation that supports and advises civil society groups and organised citizens on how to conduct efficient advocacy campaigns. VoxPublic is working alongside Liberties on the Electoral Integrity and Political Microtargeting project.
As Laure describes, the Who Targets Me Extension is a tool voluntarily downloaded by users, which highlights and analyses political advertisements shown to users on FaceBook. One limitation of the tool is that different social media platforms have disparate demographics. Laure commented that “Facebook is not used anymore by young people”, so targeted Facebook ads inherently provide a better use case for older users than younger ones. Due to this limitation, this campaign targeted networks of solidarity with older volunteers. Regardless, Laure hopes the tool can be implemented into additional contexts in the future, broadening its applicability.
Barriers to French Political Advertising
The most vital consideration in analysing the findings of Laure’s research is the legislative framework which exists in France, particularly concerning political advertising. In the 1990’s, measures were put in place to ban political advertisements on television and radio, which were later expanded to include restriction of disinformation on social media. This legislation aimed to prevent wealthier parties and candidates from dominating media airwaves, giving them an unfair advantage reaching more voters.
Due to the unique legal circumstances in France, Laure noted that of the six partners in the Who Targets Me Project, VoxPublic may be the least impactful due to the lack of political ad data which could be collected through their campaign. This led to rather inconclusive findings from the project, although it does suggest that the French law surrounding political advertising “is being respected” on Facebook. Although this legislation is uncommon in similar political systems, Laure was not surprised with this finding, as in the previous election cycles, the legal framework was well respected.
Future Projects
We also asked Laure how she thinks this research could be expanded to accommodate the limitations of the political advertising legislation in France, which narrowed her research in this case study. She noted that despite the lack of direct political advertising for a particular political party, there were plenty of general awareness efforts that did not fit into the framework of partisan advertising, such as ‘Get Out to Vote’ campaigns. In her ongoing research, understanding which political parties are more active in employing these strategies provides a further research avenue, especially given how even non-partisan campaigns can incerase voter awareness of specific parties.
In upcoming campaigns, Laure hopes to hone in on social media activity, which does have a broad effect on political polarisation, since social media is thought to have a large impact in France despite the limits on political advertising. Along with her colleagues at VoxPublic, Laure thinks it would be interesting to monitor and assess the use of other social platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, by political parties to check if the legal framework is well respected there too. To keep up to date with Laure’s work on this and other projects, check out Voxpublic's website.
More resources
French Regulations Restrict Political Ads, Yet the Far-Right Surges
VoxPublic’s research brief (English)
Who tries to influence your vote on Facebook?
Bulgaria’s 2024 EP Elections: From Problematic Targeting Techniques to Regulatory Gaps
