According to information from the program C Médiatique (broadcast on France 5), Emmanuel Macron would have given an interview to the young social media Le Crayon, which should be broadcast at the end of the day, a few days before the President’s intervention in the television news of TF1 and France 2. The strategy is clear: speak to cathode France on traditional channels, and to younger people on online resources, all with the aim of obtaining a maximum of votes before Sunday’s elections.
Emmanuel Macron is aware of the power of social media. He has already taken part in this type of exercise for Brut, Kombini, and more recently for the YouTuber Hugo Décrypte. This interview would nevertheless be a first for Le Crayon, a young media outlet which is paving its way with nearly seven hundred thousand subscribers across all networks, but still remains relatively unknown to the general public. At the origin of the debate channel: four student entrepreneurs. Among them, Wallerand Moullé-Berteaux, co-creator of the Elyze application, which made a big splash in 2022. Based on a concept close to Tinder, it allowed you to “match” with the candidate for the presidential election who matched the better to your ideas.
The buzz above all?
The Crayon slogan: “Every day, opinions to make your own. Here, we dare to unite.“Indeed, the channel dares to unite to better divide by giving pride of place to the extremes. The young media has well understood how the platforms’ algorithms work: you have to shock to emerge, by cultivating the premium on radicality.
For example, their debate format, which pits two personalities against each other: an X-rated actress and a priest, or even a feminist against a masculinist, with Julien Rochedy, former youth president of the National Front, in the role of the masculinist. The first in a long list of far-right personalities invited to Le Crayon: the influencer and former spokesperson for the identity generation Thaïs d’Escufon, the former union police officer Bruno Attal, Florian Philippot, the identity activist George Jordi, Eric Zemmour etc. The media advocates total freedom of expression, as long as it generates buzz.
A media without journalists
The members of Le Crayon are business people, who, in addition to their media activity, have developed the communications and press relations agency Le Surligneur, as well as an influence agency. A brand content activity, which helps replenish the coffers when the media generates visibility.
On the investor side: the frenetic Xavier Niel, as well as the billionaire Pierre-Edouard Stérin, a traditionalist Catholic close to the extreme right. The man made his fortune thanks to Smartbox gift boxes, and claims to be a libertarian. He lives in Belgium, does not pay taxes, does not believe in the State but in the power of money to pursue his ideology. Recently, he entered the media world by investing in the social media Néo, which highlights our region, then in the very right-wing and loss-making Factual, and maybe soon in the weekly Marianne.
So here – in broad strokes – is the sketch of Le Crayon, the media in which Emmanuel Macron is preparing to express himself in an attempt to reach young people who abstain, or who vote on the far right of the margins.
The Foreign Press Meeting Listen later
Reading listen 27 mins
