French President Emmanuel Macron has succeeded by keeping a low profile but will that survive pressures of government?
Scarcity remains the main tenet of the president’s efforts: Macron has held just six press conferences since he took office May 14, always with strict limits
US President Donald Trump tweets five times a day and regularly gives extended interviews. Since Emmanuel Macron became president of France last month, voters have barely heard from him.
Macron has had one short conversation with a newspaper, left tweeting to his communications team and avoided direct contact with the traditional media. The glimpses the French public has had of its new leader have largely been confined to set piece events with foreign dignitaries, tightly controlled speeches and made-for-Facebook video clips, such as his snub to the US president at a Nato summit in Brussels.
Pollsters say the approach is set to give him a majority in the National Assembly. The question is whether it will keep voters onside once he gets down to running the country.
“Rarity will be difficult to maintain in the age of social media,” said Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, a communications consultant and professor at the Sciences Po institute in Paris. “It has worked very well during this very particular period. The risk is that it won’t work for governing. Macron himself has proved one thing – the electorate is very volatile.”
Rarity will be difficult to maintain in the age of social media ... The risk is that it won’t work for governing
While the styles of the US and French presidents are as different as their ages, their politics and their backgrounds, both have scorned conventional wisdom on political communication after victorious campaigns that were widely dismissed at the outset.