Is Eric Zemmour overrepresented on BFMTV’s Twitter feed? – Release

Question asked by Pierre on October 7, 2021

Not officially a candidate, and yet omnipresent. The far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour, condemned for “Incitement to racial discrimination”, is everywhere in (some) media, including some 24-hour news channels. He is also overrepresented on the social networks of these channels.

To answer you, we compared the number of tweets that BFMTV devoted to Zemmour compared to tweets devoted to other candidates between September 7 and October 7. The fourteen candidates already declared, the three candidates best placed in the nomination race by The Republicans (Xavier Bertrand, Valérie Pécresse and Michel Barnier), as well as Eric Zemmour, have thus been taken into account. On the other hand, the tweets mentioning the name of Emmanuel Macron were excluded from this inventory, since the President of the Republic has not yet officially stood for re-election and most of the tweets relate to his activity in as head of state.

As a result, the former CNews columnist was cited 432 times. A daily average of over 14 mentions. But a figure that has gradually increased since the beginning of September. For the day of October 6 alone, 37 tweets were devoted to him. The record goes back to September 23, when BFMTV had organized a debate between Eric Zemmour and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The name of the polemicist had then appeared in 98 tweets. In total, in number of mentions in BFMTV’s tweets, Eric Zemmour comes very far ahead of the other candidates.

Far behind, follow the candidates of the RN and LFI, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with 147 and 141 citations respectively. Knowing that among the tweets where the first appears, she is very regularly questioned on the rise, at his expense, of Eric Zemmour in the polls, as well as on the proximity between their programs. As for the second, two-thirds of the tweets quoting it are related to the debate between him and the far-right essayist.

All asked about Zemmour

On the left, Yannick Jadot has accumulated 106 mentions, in particular thanks to the environmentalists primary he won, at the end of the second round which ended on September 28. Anne Hidalgo, carried by its declaration of candidacy of September 12 and his invitation on the set of Bourdin Direct on the 21st, appears in 83 tweets. Each invited once by BFMTV between early September and early October, Communist Fabien Roussel is cited 8 times and the promoter of made in France Arnaud Montebourg 6 times.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the three potential representatives of the right are mentioned 83 times in the case of Valérie Pécresse – invited on the channel twice -, 70 times in the case of Xavier Bertrand – who is a figure favorite in the polls – and 10 times concerning Michel Barnier. Tied with the candidate of Debout la France, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. Finally, the representative of the Les Patriotes party, Florian Philippot, has only been mentioned once since the beginning of September.

Note that all the candidates cited at least in two tweets are the subject of one or more publications in which they express their views on the potential candidacy of Eric Zemmour. The candidates who show the lowest scores in the polls, Nathalie Arthaud (Lutte Ouvrière), Philippe Poutou (New Anti-Capitalist Party), Jean-Christophe Lagarde (Union of Democrats and Independents), Jean-Frédéric Poisson (Via, the way of the people – ex-Christian Democratic Party), François Asselineau (Republican Popular Union) and Jean Lassalle (Resist), do not appear in any of the tweets recently posted by BFMTV.

“Flashlight or groundswell?”

The volume of tweets devoted by BFMTV to a candidate obviously does not reflect his air time (1). On the other hand, it is an indicator of the place, more or less central, that the channel gives to each candidate in the debate. Indeed, the tweets will reflect not only the expressions of the candidate, but also the political analyzes devoted to him or even the statements (including criticisms) of other political leaders concerning this candidate.

On October 6, for example, mentions of Zemmour on BFMTV begin at 5:36 a.m. with a tweet reporting the statement by Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti calling Zemmour a “Negationist”. A second post reports the analysis of the journalists of BFMTV on these remarks. In the following two tweets, the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau, invited on the set of Bruce Toussaint to speak on Zemmour, considers in particular that he “Embodies a virilist power just like Trump”. Then comes a whole series of tweets about the latest presidential polls. In the first place, that of Harris Interactive for Challenges, which for the first time places the essayist in the second round. But at 4:53 p.m., another poll was added: that of Elabe for BFMTV, less commented because this time Zemmour remains behind Marine Le Pen in terms of voting intentions for the first round.

In all, 28 tweets were devoted to these polls. Including in particular analyzes by managers of two polling institutes – the director of political studies at Harris Interactive (by phone, then on set and the president of Elabe (on set) – and interviews with experts (political scientists or sociologists) Above all, a host of politicians have to react to a potential arrival of Zemmour in the second round of the election: starting with Valérie Pécresse (Libres), then the spokesperson for RN Sébastien Chenu, a socialist elected to the council Ile-de-France region, LFI deputy Adrien Quatennens, ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls, president of Les Républicains Christian Jacob, as well as two supporters of the polemicist (a mayor and the yellow vest Benjamin Cauchy). also reports the reaction of the first interested parties, Zemmour and Le Pen.

The day continues with two tweets around the broadcast on the air of a “light” entitled “Zemmour: flash in the pan or groundswell?”, Two statements by the potential candidate on the occasion of a signing session from his book in Versailles and a quote from Maxence Briquet, spokesperson for the Friends of Eric Zemmour, guest on the set of Maxime Switek.

If BFMTV has therefore clearly decided to put Zemmour at the center of the political debate, this is also the case for other 24-hour news channels. Even if the trait is more or less marked. At LCI, we also give pride of place to Eric Zemmour, who has been the subject of more than twice as many tweets as the most cited candidate, Marine Le Pen. Follow Yannick Jadot (70 mentions), Valérie Pécresse (45), Xavier Bertrand (37) and Anne Hidalgo (35), regularly highlighted thanks to the processes deployed by their parties to nominate their presidential candidates – a process still in progress or completed in the past month.

The CNews channel, for its part, has almost abandoned the declared candidates, in favor of Eric Zemmour, who was one of their columnists. Marine Le Pen, who once again comes in second, is mentioned only 26 times, nearly six times less than her far-right competitor. Anne Hidalgo, Xavier Bertrand and Yannick Jadot were the subject of 20, 16 and 9 tweets respectively. Fabien Roussel, like Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and Florian Philippot, have not been mentioned at all over the past month.

Finally, on the side of France Info, it is once again the almost candidate who tops the ranking in terms of number of mentions. But the gap with the other candidates is much smaller. Xavier Bertrand, in second position thanks in particular to his passage in the morning of Monday, and Yannick Jadot are only about ten tweets of the polemicist (each cited 45 and 42 times). Anne Hidalgo cumulates 24 tweets about her, Jean-Luc Mélenchon 21 and Michel Barnier 14, ahead of Valérie Pécresse (12).

France Info also differentiates itself from competing channels by devoting only 12 tweets to Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Rally. She is thus the eighth most mentioned candidate, tied with the president of the Ile-de-France region.

(1) The channels must take care to ensure a certain equity in the speaking times granted to each political group. Zemmour’s speaking time must be counted for a month – the CSA considers that it is a “Actor of the national political debate” related “miscellaneous right”.