Three years before the French presidential elections in spring 2012, political parties goes into running order. The launching, last February 26, of several online platforms by the centrist party "Modem" is the latest illustration. The american election experience help to understand that it is impossible to have an effective Internet strategy only six months before an election and that, as underlined by the centrist leader François Bayrou in an interview, "we have to build a community of people (... ) to gather all the intelligence, listening to their ideas and if necessary provide a translation policy. "
Two platforms were presented by the Modem:
* "Les democrates.fr" which, alongside the official website of
the party, is the social networking website for members and supporters. They can find blogs, web-TV, and be classified as members like on Facebook
* The Democratic Forum, reserved for Party's members,
allowing them to share their best experiences of activism or learn "to
greet people on the street","to convince a voter" or "to hold a meeting".
Even if the blog Netpolitique regrets that "the strategies of the major parties are in a stack-based tools isolated from each other and sometimes compete," we are witnessing an important development of the French politics online. Assuming, for example, the culture of "Beta tester", architects of these tools contribute to the transformation of political parties. All French political parties, without exception, attempt to build what will be the ideal net-campaign. It's still messy, even contradictory, but it is an unavoidable mouvement.
