From Private Lives to Intimate Revelations: Politicians and the Media in Contemporary France

Abstract

Until recently France was widely regarded as quite distinct, even exceptional, among advanced liberal democracies in the way in which a clear boundary between the private and public spheres was maintained in both politicians’ mediated communication and journalists’ coverage of political issues and events (Kuhn 2004). French exceptionalism in this respect was underpinned by the norms of the national political culture, with its particular mix of Roman Catholic and secular Republican values, and by the universalist rules of the one and indivisible Republic that posited a particular ideal-type relationship between state and citizen based on a formal codification of the rights and responsibilities of each. It is now apparent that such a well-delineated boundary between the private and public spheres no longer exists in either the realm of political communication (content released into the public sphere under the control of politicians) or the world of political journalism (information and comment mediated by journalists).