On social networks, one in five messages concerns the political situation

On Sunday, June 9, Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly. There was a commotion on the news channels… and on social networks. In a few hours, more than a million publications were made on social networks on this subject. Almost a month later, the legislative elections have not left the headlines: on Thursday, July 4, they represented some 23.4 million messages published, according to the monitoring platform Visibrain.

About one in five messages published on social networks since the announcement of the dissolution concerns the first round of the legislative elections. The parties are at the center of the discussions, but their popularity is not evenly distributed. While the National Rally was the most mentioned since the European election campaign, the New Popular Front overtook it in the days following its formation.

The trend did not last: Jordan Bardella’s party ultimately concentrated more than 9.7 million messages, or 60% more than the alliance of left-wing parties. Significant figures, which can be explained by the use of “autosurfing”. This is a method that consists of appropriating popular movements, trends on social networks, to obtain greater visibility for political purposes.

However, some of these messages are not published by real users, explains Florent Lefebvre, social media analyst. “A certain portion of the feed is unnatural, with accounts either spamming or creating fake throwaway accounts.” Techniques for manipulating opinion, which are found on the extreme right, according to Visibrain’s analyses. “They are mainly present in the community supporting Reconquest and the National Rallycontinues the analyst. They contributed to [les] make more visible on X/Twitter regarding the legislative elections.”