Their champion is not yet in the campaign – even if this is not quite the opinion of the other candidates – but the Youth with Macron (JAM) are already well launched. After the warm-up tour last September, where 50,000 posters calling for the President of the Republic for “five more seasons” had been posted throughout France, they were talked about again at the start of the week on the occasion of Valentine’s Day. First with a poster with an enticing slogan – “We really want… you” – then a vast communication operation on the dating apps Tinder, Grindr and Bumble.
The first cited quickly put the kibosh for violating its rules of use, but the communication coup worked since it caused a conversation. The JAM are not the only ones to have wanted to mark the occasion for this February 14. Yannick Jadot’s young supporters sprayed the networks with their “adopteunvert” campaign, in reference to another famous dating site, when Generation Z deployed the hashtag “#Zemmoureuses” on Twitter. You don’t need to have attended polytechnic to understand the manoeuvre. The presidential election is approaching, all means are good to attract the attention of voters, and in particular the youngest, versatile and mostly abstaining fringe.
📅 D-58. We really want you! 🇬🇧 #MacronPresidentDesJeunes pic.twitter.com/ypLFiKByBu
– Young people with Macron #withyou (@JeunesMacron) February 11, 2022
“This is of course part of our reflection: how to catch the curiosity of a young person who today is not interested in politics, explains Sacha Halphen, spokesperson and national adviser for young people with Macron. It goes through the codes of our generation, through Netflix, through Tinder, through somewhat sexy posters. We’re not the only ones doing it, and that’s good. We consider that any action that aims to interest young people in politics is a good thing. »
These few examples reflect the main role of the youth movements backed by the candidates in this campaign. This “mobilization” aspect is not new, we remember – depending on the generation – the young Giscardians with their “Giscard à la barre” t-shirts, the MJS commando (Movement of young socialists) in pajamas under the windows of the Prime Minister Edouard Balladur or Young Pop’ doped by the personality of Nicolas Sarkozy. They have always been the basic, essential workforce, the one who tows, who sticks up posters, who bellows in the front rows of meetings to set the mood. With however this evolution reflecting the era of time: it is also, today, that which reigns on social networks and digital. What to make a place of choice in this vast presidential battle.
A “gamification” of politics
“These tools have given them legitimacy,” says political scientist Virginie Martin. They allow them to shake things up, to pass on ideas without having to wait their turn, when previous generations had to apologize constantly and give way to elders for years. The professor of political science and sociology, author of a book (The discreet charm of the seriesat HumenSciences) on the way in which series now invite themselves into political and societal debates, evokes a kind of digital-political revolution, a “gamification”, in which the main actors are young activists.
But these digital children do not intend to remain immured in this role. “We also want to weigh in on the substance,” says Sacha Halphen. At the beginning of February, the JAMs thus unveiled 188 proposals, “the fruit of five years of work” with their 31,000 members spread throughout the territory, with the aim of feeding the program of their future candidate. “Being heard is possible, we have already done it during the pandemic with meals at 1 euro in the Crous. It’s rewarding, and we want to do that again on this presidential election, ”said the spokesperson.
This is the goal of every youth movement. And, to listen to them, it is more and more the case. “The Young Republicans are courted and listened to today, and that’s a good thing. We also manage to impose ideas, ”said their president Guilhem Carayon in November at the time of the LR primary, on which he weighed by obtaining commitments from the five candidates. Same thing with the Greens, where the collective Jeunes & Jadot, which brings together various organizations of young environmentalists during the campaign, claims a real dialogue with the candidate’s team and the proposals that have made their mark.
“Beyond that, we are also asked to respond to associations or during hearings on specific subjects”, assures Camille Hachez, one of the managers. This was the case, for example, on Monday evening, in front of the Student Observatory of Sexual and Sexist Violence. “The teams know that we have a different ear from that which the ‘old’ might have”, she says with a smile.
“Opposition with the parent company”
This year, a great first, a debate between eight young representatives of the main contenders was organized and above all broadcast on an information channel (LCI) in prime time, on January 26th. New proof that young people can also perform representative functions. “The public tells us that they are tired of always seeing the same faces. We are going to see new faces and that can make things happen, ”said the co-host of the evening Christophe Beaugrand at 20 minutes just before the event. “It was a good angle to get to know the programs better, because hearing it from the mouth of a young person can bring a slightly different vision,” says Camille Hachez.
The audience had been quite good, with up to 200,000 viewers in front of their screens to listen to the next generation. “This debate showed that we were not necessarily like our elders to cultivate the language of wood, notes for his part Sacha Halphen. When things go wrong, we say so. Moreover, at the JAM we do not hesitate to be in opposition to the parent company, on cannabis or the end of life for example. “Have the youth movements become a counter-power within the parties? “We have a duty of vigilance, in any case, on the subjects which rise and depict a need for reforms in our society”, replies the Macronist.
Political scientist Stéphane Rozès does not agree with this idea. For him, young people remain “activist relays” above all, responsible for reaching their fellow human beings “through more emotional than ideological dimensions”. “Before, we went to look for the embryo of the future from them. In the current, neo-liberal moment, it is no longer a question of building the future so much as of reacting to the present”, supports the president of Cap (Advice, analyzes and perspectives) and teaching at Sciences Po. have not finished having to convince.