Penelope Gate: Entertaining Politics Format.

The Penelope Gate is causing quite a stir in the presidential race. Francois Fillon, the right-wing candidate, built his campaign on the image of a sleaze-free Mr Clean. However, in January, the Canard Enchainé, a satirical newspaper, revealed that Fillion's wife Penelope, was paid 680 000 euros of parliamentary funds for working as an assistant for him over a period of 15 years. But she claimed in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2007 that she had never worked for her husband. Since then, Francois Fillon claims to be the victim of the media. According to him, this affair is a political assassination that paints him as a villain and jeopardises his election chances.

I want to concentrate on how this affair is covered on television, by looking at a particular format. Le Quotidien is an infotainment show, similar to Late Night shows in the UK and US, presented by Yann Barthes and broadcast every Friday evening from 7:20 pm to 9:00 pm on TMC. It uses comedic elements to tackle issues in politics. On 10th February, they broadcast a sensitive report on the attitude of some of Fillon's supporters towards the journalists, a degrading relationship because of how the candidate is portrayed in the media. Unfortunately, the video is protected and can't be subtitled. I invite you to watch it at this address to get a feeling of how the programme is constructed: http://www.lci.fr/medias/video-quotidien-hugo-clement-le-derapage-incontrole-d-un-militant-pro-fillon-qui-compare-les-medias-aux-nazis-a-auschwitz-2025574.html

Le Quotidien aims for transparency and does so mainly through editing. When a supporter says that the Canard Enchaine is left-wing and doesn't publish scandals from left-wing politicians, the show takes archive to demonstrate otherwise. When a man says that bringing this newspaper in a meeting for Fillon is like bringing the Koran in a church and that it's disrespectful, Le Quotidien shows the interview of a priest saying that it's okay to do so.

This key element of this television format is that it's tackled with humour. Jones describes this in his book Entertaining Politics: new political television and civic culture. He argues that these programmes are a response to fakery in television's traditional representation of politics. "The comedians express a desire for honesty in public life [...]resulting most often in a take-it-or-leave-it criticism of the political and social landscape that they encounter and respond to in the course of each day or week" (Jones, 2010, p.53). Moreover, the presence of the audience in the studio enhances the impact of Yann Barthes' arguments. When the public laughs, they acknowledge that the situation is funny and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Sources:

• Jones, J. (2010). Entertaining politics. 1st ed. Lanham: Rowman.
• http://www.lci.fr/medias/video-quotidien-hugo-clement-le-derapage-incontrole-d-un-militant-pro-fillon-qui-compare-les-medias-aux-nazis-a-auschwitz-2025574.html
• http://www.tf1.fr/tmc/quotidien-avec-yann-barthes/videos/quotidien-deuxieme-partie-10-fevrier-2017.html