May 8, 2007
"Human Bomb" online video played an unlikely backstage role in the French election
A five-minute video called the "Sarkozy Human Bomb" played on YouTube unlikely backstage role in the French election victory of Nicolas Sarkozy, demonstrating the muscular, new role of online campaigning in a country where paid political advertising on television is banned. The International Herald Tribune reports.
"The video drew more than 450,000 viewers attracted by an old chapter from Sarkozy's life: brash suburban mayor personally negotiates with the "Human Bomb," a deranged man who seized kindergarten students as hostages in 1993.
"The video's underlying message was as subtle as its pensive soundtrack music ("Honor Him" from "The Gladiator"), but the online approach served a critical function in the last ten days of the presidential campaign in a country where the fiercest political clashes now explode on user generated sites like Dailymotion and YouTube.com because of television advertising restrictions.
It offered a human and emotional view of Sarkozy, the target of wildly popular attack videos such as "La France d'Après" - which imagines a bleak new France under Sarkozy with riot police, burning cars, and suburbs engulfed in violence.
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