InvestigationFollowed by millions of subscribers on social networks, the influencer and the host have become key interlocutors for the candidates for the presidential election. They even imposed their codes on traditional broadcasts. At the risk of weakening the debate.
She arrives in Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor) in a black van with smoked windows, from which jump three cameramen in hooded sweatshirts and a soundman. The driver and the make-up artist stay on board. Magali Berdah, 40, long fitted gray coat, black leather boots and sharp nails, hair up in a bun, enters, escorted by her bodyguard and the assistant who follows her like a shadow, into the office social aid that Anne Hidalgo visits, this February 18.
Everything freezes. The press secretary of the socialist candidate for the presidential election readjusts her stole and drops her phone to go and welcome the queen of influencers. The reporters from TF1, France 3 or the local press who follow the mayor of Paris that day no longer exist. Magali Berdah, Instagram star (1 million followers), is the only one whom Anne Hidalgo will greet, big smile, hand resting on her arm for a long moment, before granting her a twenty-minute filmed tete-a-tete, denied to others.
The pool of journalists left outside under the drizzle is hallucinating. “That says it all about politics in 2022! »quipped a local; “When the ignorant inform the ignorant, we don’t get very far”, mocks a photographer. Without even having to ask, the disarming Magali Berdah, totally indifferent to the taunts, privatized the trip to Anne Hidalgo.
The boss of Shauna Events, which manages the careers of reality TV stars (41 million euros in turnover in 2020), has just launched her channel on YouTube, the reference media for those under 25. This product placement specialist broadcasts her 35-minute reports in immersion with the presidential candidates, and has already totaled a million views, to which are added the reposts and retweets of her pool of influencers, protagonists of shows. like “The Angels of reality TV” (NRJ 12) or “The Marseillais” (W9), which themselves attract millions of subscribers…
In short, to reach depoliticized and largely abstentionist young people who no longer watch the news, “Magali Berdah is essential”, assures Geoffroy Didier, the communication director of Valérie Pécresse. Admittedly, the war in Ukraine suspended the announced participation of the latter. « The campaign has changed in nature,” immediately decreed the representative of the Republicans. For a week, the presidential candidates wanted to avoid any incursion into programs that were too light. The tone of the moment is serious, commensurate with the drama unfolding on European soil.
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