The Impact of the Television Media on the French Referendum Campaign in 2005

The question of the democratisation of the European Union is often approached from a theoretical view point: which procedures would make it possible for the citizen to weigh up the choices arrived at or to control the activities of policy makers at European level? Yet procedures are never but an instrument and their efficiency largely depends on the context in which they are to intervene. Thus it is that the absence of a true public European space represents a serious obstacle to effective democratisation.

Notre Europe has undertaken an ongoing reflection process on that range of issues. Having raised the question of the usefulness of a possible politicisation of the European system1, it looked into the role political parties have to play in it. An exploration of European civil society is also under way.

This study investigates the role in the European debate of another key actor in the public arena: the media. It is not often that their activities are denounced as they were during the referendum campaign of 2005 on the constitutional treaty. The opponents to the text objected, often vehemently, to the way the press handled theses questions. And it would appear that, on the whole, the major French media had taken up an editorial line favourable to the Yes vote; for all that, it did not prevent the rejection of the constitutional project.

To account for this apparent paradox, we have called on Professor Jacques Gerstlé, prominent specialist of the role of the media. The discerning analysis he sets forth in the pages below is illuminating in more ways than one. Placing the televised news under scrutiny, he shows in particular that the influence of the media must be considered more broadly, for it is often brought to bear tangentially. The highlighting of some objects, as much as the actors’ declarations, may contribute to influence the perception some voters have of what is at stake in the debate. Thus, in the case of the referendum, the importance given in the news to social issues, specifically the notorious « Bolkestein directive » and the delegitimizing images of the European construction peddled by the “everyday” news fed into the fears entertained by a section of the electorate.