Social media analysis: Tight race between Le Pen and Mélenchon in the French presidential election — but Twitter loves Macron
Sunday’s presidential elections in France will show if it is better to trust in the sheer power of the crowds or the quality of a candidate’s relationship with the voters on social media.
If we look only at Underhood’s reputation scores either François Fillon or Benoît Hamon will win the elections. They get the most likes, comments, and shares especially on Facebook compared to the size of their audience. Their fans love them.
But… Then there is the big “but”.
Marine Le Pen has almost 5 times more followers on social media than Hamon (Twitter and Facebook combined) and more than 3 times more than Fillon. Only candidate getting close to Le Pen in fan count is Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
That’s a huge difference. Too huge. Neither Hamon or Fillon will make it to 2nd round.
When Le Pen or Mélenchon post something, their message is heard, not because they say something extraordinary or engaging, but because they are speaking to huge masses.
That is power.
Le Pen and Mélenchon tweet like mad.
Le Pen or Mélenchon differ from the other candidates also in the number of their daily tweets. Both tweet like mad. During the last two months both Le Pen and Mélenchon have tweeted about 90 times per day while the other candidates have been tweeting 24–45 times per day on average.
That is a lot of noise for Le Pen and Mélenchon.
But the race is not over. Twitter seems to love Emmanuel Macron. The youngest of the candidates gets many more retweets and likes than Le Pen or Mélenchon, even though his Twitter audience is much smaller than theirs.
So, what can we say, who will become the president of France if we look at the social media data?
If we look only at the number of their fans on social media, Marine Le Pen is the next president of France. No doubt. She has 2.7 million followers while Mélenchon has only 2 million. But Mélenchon’s audience is slightly more engaged.
But the race is not over. French Twitter adores Macron and shares everything he tweets. But Macron has only 950,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook combined. That might not be enough.
Our prediction is that Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon will face each other in the second round. Far right against far left. But Macron has a small chance too.
Sunday will tell. And we will offer a new analysis for the second round.
Note: the scores of the candidates are updated daily. Click on the candidate names to see the full analysis on Underhood.
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