Podcasting reaches mainstream French politics

Loic Lemeur scored a bullseye just prior to the holiday period when he secured a video podcast interview with Nicolas Sarkozy , the French law and order minister who has aspirations of taking over the French presidency from Jacques Chirac.

It would be easy to pass this off as a publicity stunt, sucked up by the gullible.  After all, Sarkozy is not exactly camera shy and Lemeur chose not to press Sarkozy on issues of importance. But that would be to miss the point. BusinessWeek Online provided coverage and analysis , noting that:

"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. "Bravo!" read many of the hundreds of viewer commentaries posted on Le Meur’s blog over the past few days. 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"

It matters not whether Lemeur did a good interviewing ‘job’ or otherwise. He has proven the technology has power and impact. That’s the point. The fact it has happened in France is testament to the way this medium has been both promoted and adopted - almost single handedly by Lemeur. It won’t be long before the same happens in the UK. It will be interesting to see whether the US picks up on this.