#NoDebateNoMandate? You may have seen this hashtag flourish on Twitter after the publication of a column in Release, Tuesday, March 15. The idea behind the slogan is clear: the potential re-election of Emmanuel Macron would be illegitimate on the grounds that the latter refuses to lend himself to one or more debates with his opponents before the first round of the presidential election. If the signatories come from the left or the far left, the hashtag has also been taken up by the far right. Franceinfo answers four questions posed by this campaign on social networks.
1How was this hashtag born?
In a column published by Release and titled “Presidential campaign: #PasDeDébatPasDeMandat by Adèle Haenel, Annie Ernaux, Barbara Stiegler…”a collective of artists, philosophers and economists deplore the strategy of “tacit agreement” by Emmanuel Macron.
“We understood that Macron had as his ideal the renewal of his mandate by tacit agreement. That there would be a war and that he would use it with the last degree of opportunistic hypocrisy, we could hardly see it coming. “
The authors of the forumin Liberation
The signatories of the forum, including the writer Laurent Binet, the philosopher Frédéric Lordon, the feminist activist Caroline De Haas or the author Alice Zeniter, draw up an extremely severe assessment of the five-year term. ‘The reality after five years of macronism is that the hospital is in shambles, justice is in shambles, the school is in shambles, civil liberties are in shambles, the great cause of feminism is a joke,’ Make Our Planet Great Again’ is a huge joke – but the police are all-powerful and digital surveillance is passing Orwellian milestones”they write. “Emmanuel Macron is so satisfied with it that he intends to prolong everything and make everything worse – we understand that in his mind there is no need to discuss it since on the menu there is only even more”they add.
The President of the Republic has in fact made it known that he will not take part in any debate before the first round, assuring that“no running president who is running for office has done so.” Emmanuel Macron favors meetings with citizens, the first of which in Poissy, in the Yvelines, was singled out by the press for his excessive preparation. “Let’s not let him do it. He’s hiding out? #WeGoToSeek. #PasDeDébatPasDeMandat”conclude the signatories of the forum.
2How was it picked up on social media?
Monday, on the eve of the publication of the tribune in Freed, the hashtag is retweeted more than 500 times, mainly by accounts on the left, such as journalist David Dufresne or historian Mathilde Larrère, both signatories of the forum. Its use explodes the next day. According to data provided by the social media analysis company Visibrain, the hashtag was tweeted or retweeted 7,260 times on March 15, nearly 26,000 times on March 16. A “DebatMandat” Twitter account is also used to relay posts with the hashtag. As several journalists have noted, this account is actually an old account kept by relatives of the deputy of La France insoumise François Ruffin.
Update: behind the hashtag #NoDebatNoMandatewe find in fact a campaign led by those close to François Ruffin.
It is obviously their right, but it is important to underline it.
As specified @vincentgladthe account @DebatMandate is the former @LaFeteaMacron. https://t.co/MMtPIb5mjs pic.twitter.com/9mJTtmVkjF
— Raphael Grably (@GrablyR) March 16, 2022
The far right is also taking over the hashtag. Marine Le Pen’s former right-hand man, Florian Philippot, tweet a message on this subject, denouncing a “illegitimate mandate”. The presidential candidate, Eric Zemmour, also takes up the hashtag by criticizing a photo of Emmanuel Macron published by his official photographer.
Emmanuel Macron wants us to believe that he no longer even has time to shave, dress and comb his hair. He wants to be pitied. Meanwhile, the French are working and suffering.#NoDebatNoMandate pic.twitter.com/zpCvQiqEnu
— Eric Zemmour (@ZemmourEric) March 16, 2022
3How does Emmanuel Macron’s entourage react?
“All these illegitimacy trials are inappropriate and dangerous”, replies to franceinfo the deputy LREM Roland Lescure. In an interview at Figaropublished on Tuesday, the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, had also made the music of illegitimacy heard. “If there is no campaign, the question of the legitimacy of the winner will arise. (…) The President of the Republic wants to be re-elected without ever having been a real candidate, without campaign, without debate, without confrontation of ideas”he snapped, attracting the wrath of the macronists.
“Pretending that the election would be illegitimate because we didn’t have a twelve-a-side debate in prime time is ridiculous. We can debate otherwise!”
Roland Lescure, LREM MPat franceinfo
“We are not going not to campaign and we are not going to step over the election, that would be dangerousexplains a framework of the majority. Then there is an international calendar that shakes up the campaign and as he is president first, he cannot dodge this job.
4What do the signatories of the forum answer?
Faced with the recovery of the extreme right, in particular the camp of Eric Zemmour, the collective at the origin of the tribune denounces to the HuffPost “opportunism” and “low-level political utilitarianism” of the candidate. “Eric Zemmour does what he wants. But of course we don’t like it. Make no mistake about it: those who go up our Twitter feed over two or three days will see that the anchor on the left is very clearassures the collective. We are really in a position that says ‘outside the rights and their extremes’. We do not know how he will manage in his communication, when he has scratched a little behind the hashtag.