Les "petites phrases" de la campagne présidentielle de Marine Le Pen: quel type d'information?

Abstract

This research deals with the electoral campaign for 2022 presidential elections in France. Starting from the distinction between the French expressions “mésinformation”, “désinformation” and “information malveillante”, it aims at analysing Marine Le Pen’s argumentation during her campaign and the type of information which is spread via social media, namely Twitter. In particular, attention will be paid to a video published in the Twitter counter-profile “Sans lui” in order to examine its sound bites. Methodological framework is based on the analysis of digital discourse (Paveau 2016; Lacaze 2021, among others) and on French political and media discourse (Krieg-Planque 2009, 2011; Amossy 2014; Charaudeau 2020, 2022; Maingueneau 2021; Wahnich 2022, among others). The results of this analysis show that sound bites used by Marine Le Pen mostly express disinformation and malevolent information. This result is in line with populist rhetoric by Marine Le Pen and her party and, more in general, with the “crisis of truth” (Charaudeau 2020) that characterizes contemporary times.