ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a broad-ranging analysis and evaluation of the media's role in the presidential and parliamentary contests and begins with an overview of the contemporary political communications landscape. France has a highly developed infrastructure of political communications media, including regional and national newspapers, news magazines, local and national radio, television and the internet. Yet though free to support particular candidates, French newspapers as a whole are generally much less strident in their partisanship than is the case with their British counterparts. The chapter examines the mediatisation of the Chirac and Jospin candidacies partisanship and balance in press and broadcast coverage, the campaign agendas and the media mobilisation against Le Pen between the two rounds of the presidential battle. It argues that while the media did not determine the election results, they did exert a significant influence on candidates' campaign strategies, the salience of issues and the propensity of the electorate to turn out to vote.
