Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron has gripped the political power of France through the centrist party of the Renaissance—clenching as much as he could from French leftist and far-right political factions. In early June 2024, the European Parliament held its vast elections throughout Europe, and the French’s far-right party, the National Rally, had achieved an unexpected success, where the National Rally won around 32% while Macron’s party only obtained around 15%. This outcome incited significant concern among the people of France and also from the French left and centrist parties. In response to this election result, President Macron decided to dissolve the lower house of parliament and called for a snap election for the legislative election; the first round was held on June 30, and the second round was on July 7 (DW News, 2024). In the span of 2-3 weeks, Macron endeavored to garner support from the left and centrist party to form a coalition in order to prompt a triumph upon the far-right, including through the role of influencers, such as Kylian Mbappé, to turn down the French far-right.
In the first round of June’s 2024 legislative election, Macron’s party faced a surprising defeat by the far-right National Rally, led by Le Pen. The captain of French Les Bleus, Mbappé, howls the first round of the election as “catastrophic” and says, “There’s an emergency, we cannot let our country in the hands of these people, it’s really urgent,” urging the French public to vote against the far-right (Chavin, 2024). He also made a statement early in the Euro 2024 tournament, saying “the extremists are knocking on the door of power… we really hope this is going to change … that everyone is going to rally together to go and vote, and vote for the right party … our values are the values of diversity, tolerance, and respect.” emphasizing the urgency of the French’s political uncertainty. On July 7, the second round of the legislative elections marked an astounding result, where the National Rally, as the expected winner of the election, suffered a staggering to the left and centrist coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP), securing Macron’s political agenda and dominions over France. The election result is not without the help of the influencers, including Mbappé ’s role in fabricating narrative to vote against the far-right.
Through this occurrence, Mbappé’s role in influencing political voters is apparent, demonstrating his role as an influencer of the masses. According to Goodwin et al. (2023), influencers may hold the capacity to influence voters through several key points — firstly, the public captures influencers as the opinion leaders for them where the narratives brought by them are deemed trustworthy and relatable, creating a valuable influence on political and social campaigns. Secondly, influencers are seen as the amplification of messages to a vast audience — and as the amplifier of messages, they are seen as an effective tool for spreading information and shaping public opinion. With his role as an influencer of the masses, with a total of 121 million worldwide followers on Instagram, Mbappé has successfully shaped the opinion of the masses, which gained further attention through media coverage and public engagement.
In comprehending the role of how influencers may influence opinion, a prominent aspect comes from the utilization of language or narrative. A Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, could help in understanding the role of how language may be utilized on a vast scale. In Cours de Linguistique Générale (1916), he introduced the idea that linguistic sign is fabricated from the theory of the signifier, which is the form of a word per se, and the signified, the underlying concept or meaning it represents. For instance, Mbappé’s statements of “urgency,” “extremist,” “emergency”, and “change” are the signifier, a mere form of words, and these words possess each of their own embedded meanings, the signified, where it shapes the comprehension of the French public that there is an existence of urgency and a call to action in order to prevent the extremists wielding the political power, which may have the potential to threaten the dignity and rights of the French people.
Another concept developed by Saussure is the utilization of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions mean that there is a contrasting juxtaposition of a certain word in order to make the reader reflect on the words’ opposing meaning. For instance, a political figure may label their opponent as ‘evil’ while he is the ‘good’ one, ‘anarchy’ to ‘lawful’, ‘feminine’ to ‘masculine’, et cetera. These conceptions are also apparent within the narrative brought by Mbappé through his interviews on various media, including the times where he stated that the far-right winning was “catastrophic,” which implies that the opposite of the far-right winning is a peaceful or at least better circumstance. He also utilized the narrative that French values are “the values of diversity, tolerance, and respect,” which indirectly labels the far-right as uniformity, intolerance, and disrespectfulness. Both of these linguistic strategies, the theory of signifier & signified and the binary opposition, are apparent within the context of how Mbappé tries to influence and shape public opinion — which is considered a successful case on how an influencer may alter the behavior and opinion of the masses.
Clearly, this is not the first time a public figure is involved in shaping public opinion. Taylor Swift in 2018 endorsed Democratic candidates in Tennessee, and actors Kathryn Grody and Mandy Patinkin have also endorsed Democratic candidates (Becker, 2021; Nisbett & Schartel Dunn, 2021). Deja Foxx, an American model, joined the 2020 presidential campaign of Kamala Harris (Dunlea & Smith, 2021). Rogan O’Handley, a conservative influencer under the name of DC Draino, has endorsed Donald Trump’s Republicanism agenda (Mahoney, 2022). These influencers are lending their credibility and their audiences to politicians with their political agendas (Goodwin et al., 2023). Through this occurrence, it can be noted that public figures may also play an important role as they could shape the opinion and behavior of the masses.
The recent political dynamics in France have underscored the prominent role in which public figures, particularly Kylian Mbappé, can leverage their voices to shape France’s public and political results. Mbappé serves as the beacon of hope for the public through his vocal opposition towards the French far-right National Rally Party and his promotion for diversity, tolerance, and respect, amplified through global media coverage, demonstrates the profound impact of public figures’ capability to shape political processes.
