Constructing 'the French People' - On Sarkozy's Populism

Damon Mayaffre (1) , Ronny Scholz (2)

1 BCL, équipe Logométrie : corpus, traitements, modèles
2 University of Warwick [Coventry]

Election campaigns represent a particular moment of political practice in democracies where political strategy and political discourse become one activity. Campaigns take effect through the speeches of candidates communicated to the electorate. This article analyses speeches of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaigns in 2007 and 2012. Based on text statistical methods developed in French discourse analysis it examines his political position and his rhetorical techniques. In comparison to other presidents of the Fifth Republic, Sarkozy’s discourse seems to be freed from typical party political positions. Whilst favouring direct encounters with the audience and pretending to speak to the whole nation he is embodying a form of populism which bestows his image of a charismatic leader

Mots clés: Political discourse; election campaign; Sarkozy; logometry; populism

Domaines: Linguistique; Science politique

Damon Mayaffre, Ronny Scholz. Constructing 'the French People' - On Sarkozy's Populism. Journal of Language and Politics, 2017, 16:6. ⟨hal-01428525⟩