The podcast shaking up French politics
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Nicolas Sarkozy, the law-and-order Interior Minister who wants to be France’s next President, rarely passes up a chance to speak before an audience. So when Loic Le Meur, one of the country’s most widely read bloggers, proposed doing a podcast interview with Sarkozy, the answer was mais, oui.
The December 22 interview has created a sensation in the French blogosophere. It has attracted more than 50,000 views on Le Meur’s blog, www.loiclemeur.com, and has been picked up by scores of other French blogs. Although the podcast is in French, Le Meur has an English-language version of his blog that summarises the interview.
Not only is it the first-ever podcast by a French political leader, it also marks a startling break with customary etiquette, as Sarkozy and Le Meur address each other with the familiar ‘tu’ rather than ‘vous’ during their 30-minute meeting. Many are heralding the interview as a watershed event, showing that French politicians can no longer afford to ignore the growing importance of nontraditional media.
(via Media News at the European Centre for Digital Communication http://www.ejc.nl/mn/searchnews.asp)