Month: September 2022

Once a month, Mascaret and its partner Odoxa offer you a political barometer to take the temperature of public opinion. This month, the central theme is the respectability of political staff and the impact of the Quatennens affair. Benjamin Grange and Yves Censi share their analysis of social networks:

The end of the electoral craze: users are now abandoning politicians

All mentions of personalities have returned to a “normal” configuration since the end of the elections. The general drop in volumes signals the end of the period of electoral fervor: people are turning away from national elected officials. It is now on the networks and in the public square that political and regal topics are debated, which are always topical (economy and inflation, energy, security, international, etc.).

Emmanuel Macron dominates the space, RN and Nupes lock themselves in their polemics

With its 3,000,000 mentions and 14,000,000 commitments in France, Emmanuel Macron is clearly ahead of the opposition beachheads. Opponents who have initiated few media offensives in this month of September, more preoccupied with internal affairs.

Significant element: most of the peaks of mentions of the opponents are made in reaction – or even in opposition – that is to say following attacks or polemics of their opponents.

The Quatennens affair enrages Internet users: the “hope-trahison-angst” dynamic is underway

We observed in the previous Odoxa – Mascaret political barometer that the young leaders of the different political parties had benefited from a large peak of interest from the public during the legislative elections. Adrien Quatennens of France Insoumise, re-elected deputy of the North, was one of them.

With more than 300,000 mentions and 1,200,000 (!) engagements on social networks, the “Quatennens affair” is THE polemic of this month of September.

Caught out, he is now paying a high price.

Almost half (46.3%) of the publications and comments on this subject are negative (the others being mostly neutral or in defense)! This is a particularly high rate that reveals the anger of Internet users.

The spectacular increase in the visibility of the name “Quatennens” – multiplied by 10 with the affair – is not a good advertisement, neither for him, nor for his party. It shows that a dynamic of “hope-trahison-anger” has been set in motion among Internet users in general and left-wing sympathizers in particular in the face of what they perceive as a betrayal of the “pact of respectability”.

They feel betrayed both because Quatennens has to be exemplary as an elected official, but also because he and his party have been particularly rigorous for “the others” whenever an affair of morality concerned them.

In short, on social networks, both LFI and Quatennens are getting a taste of their own medicine.

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Senior partner and CEO of Mascaret (formerly Dentsu Consulting), Benjamin GRANGE reveals the content of his latest article for Forbes France: “The company has become political”.

The rise of stakeholders, the ESG approach, Covid19, the Russian crisis, … have strongly politicized the way companies manage their external relations

Internal politics has always been part of the company. In its positive sense, it consists in being diplomatic, in the art of promoting decisions, in presenting situations as well as possible internally. But in recent years, and with an acceleration since 2020, events have forced companies to go further. In its definition, politics is mainly about the collective. It concerns the actions, the balance, the development of the society in which we live, in all its aspects. For the company, politics is about the capacity to generate its externalities and to take clear positions towards society. For a long time, the company remained focused on its shareholders, whose growth and return it had to serve. It thus avoided interfering in matters relating to political parties, the geopolitical situation or public debates when this did not directly threaten the continuity of its operations.

Today, in an accelerated world where the transformation of the notion of authority, the systematic relativization of points of view, the multipolarity of decision-making centers, the versatility of communities of interest on the Internet, etc., mean that we have moved from the era of claimed expertise to the era of assumed influence, the company has been led to become a political player. Without limiting the personal impetus given by certain managers, pressure from customers, NGOs and civil society has forced the company to be curious and to make commitments in the management of its potential externalities: climate transition, production ethics, diversity, etc. By becoming aware of its interactions with society, the company has gradually become more political. As a direct consequence, it has begun to display its struggles, as illustrated by its status as a company with a mission or B-Corp. With Covid19, the company became a relay for the public authorities, offering services that the State had difficulty providing: purchase of masks, manufacture of gel, etc. Since then, the war in Ukraine has opened up the field of geopolitics: withdraw from Russia, leaving almost everything behind before the economic sanctions, or stay and be accused of not playing Europe’s game. Because if the company has become political in its relations with the outside world, it is also playing politics more and more. Total Energies chose to maintain its activity in Russia during the first months of the war. The consequence was twofold: significant profits and a new reputational issue, even prompting Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, to call for a tax on the excess profits of energy companies. At the same time, soaring fuel prices have generated intense mobilization of public authorities to implement measures to support purchasing power. Air transport and its customers have been singled out for the level of CO2 emissions, while industries that emit much more are the symbol of what needs to be relocated. Today, with the concept of sovereignty applied to private actors, relations are oriented towards certain “friendly” countries or countries reputed to be so, to the detriment of others. Another political choice! This situation raises a question of organization for the company. Who is responsible for managing this political management?

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To find all our analyses on this subject, go to our website or directly to the pages of Forbes!