Public opinion believes less and less in official speeches. It is about being and not about promising. Consequently, what images can “reveal” the way of being? This is the central object of political communication. In France, the current president of the republic, Emmanuel Macron, knows this very well. A few days ago, he was seen with an appearance inspired by the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky, making an appearance in jeans, a military sweatshirt and a beard of several days. The photos spread through France like wildfire.
Why? Who is behind all this? A photographer named Soazig de la Moissonière and a strategy called behind-the-scenes that presidents like Barack Obama applied in their campaigns for years.
Just as Pete Souza followed and immortalized Barack Obama in the White House, Soazig de la Moissonière has access to the Elysée chambers to photograph Macron behind the scenes. A few days ago, she herself took some photographs of him in which Macron appears in black and white that many have compared to President Kennedy’s during the Cuban missile crisis. This photographer likes to combine close-ups (of Macron’s eyes or right hand) with profile photos and larger images in which you can also see the close associates of the president and a large painting by Pierre Soulages.
Inspiration Obama 2012 #PortraitOfficiel #Macron pic.twitter.com/C54z8NqeTs
— Camille Langlade (@CamilleLanglade) June 29, 2017
The similarities are surprising. In its column “The Eye of Salhia Brakhlia”, a BFMTV newspaper took an interest in the work of Soazig de La Moissonnière, who in particular made the official portrait of Emmanuel Macron. The 36-year-old follows the Elysée tenant on all his trips and public appearances. What Salhia Brakhlia highlighted is that unlike the photos of François Hollande made public, those of Emmanuel Macron show him in his “private moments“. A practice similar to that of Pete Souza, the official photographer of Barack Obama.
In fact, more examples of clichés speak for themselves: like the former White House tenant, Brigitte Macron’s partner was photographed with her back facing a window, like Barack Obama, he was also photographed in his office working.
However, as with most of these portraits, there is a lot of symbolism here if you know where to look. For Macron, a 39-year-old self-proclaimed radical centrist and former investment banker who won a landslide victory in presidential and parliamentary elections, the portrait is an opportunity to send some subtle messages about the kind of leader he will be.
An election strategy
Soazig de La Moissonnière he does not hesitate to post his photos on his Twitter and Instagram account. During François Hollande’s five-year term, only photos taken during official performances were published on social media, explained Stéphane Ruet, the former Elysée image manager. According to the Macron environment quoted by the BFMTV newspaper, Soazig de La Moissonnière “knows him very well. He is the one he trusts the most. He knows Emmanuel Macron’s emotions.”
She is one of the president’s first companions. Already Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 campaign was heavily inspired by the Obama years. And since 2016, Soazig de la Moissonnière has revealed some secrets of her work in power, capturing Macron’s life in the Elysee, in the presidential Falcon or drinking a pint of beer in Brussels.
Usually very restrained, Soazig de la Moissonnière participated in the game of questions and answers through Instagram stories. “How are her relations with the president: boss-employee or is it cooler, the Jacques Chirac genre?” a subscriber asked. The answer: “He knows me, I see him as you. We get along well”.
At 38, the employee of the presidency admitted that her work “is not always easy” but rather “challenging.” Fortunately, the results are mostly very positive. “It’s a hellish experience. I receive many meetings, trips, exchanges, joys, pains. And always the desire to renew myself,” she assured.
For the images on Instagram, Soazig de la Moissonnière outlined what the style of the 2022 campaign could be: the “behind the scenes” campaign. This logic dates back to the Kennedy years. The real innovator then was Jacques Lowe with JFK. Pete Souza successfully applied the method with Ronald Reagan. The logic: the human being behind the show and the backstage behind the official stage.
Public opinion believes less and less in official speeches. It is about being and not about promising. At the moment in France, this logic is not yet very present. On TikTok, Eric Zemmour successfully engages in this evolution: bowling, soccer… are excerpts that make the candidate likeable and are the subject of very strong audiences.
For Obama, the “behind the scenes” culture had become a form of communication in its own right, to the point of even becoming the title of a short official weekly video. Has it already become a presidential pattern for the elections of the new decade?