French election provokes jokes, japes and cryptic messages on Twitter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/22/french-presidential-election-jokes-twitter

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France's efforts to prevent premature leaks of its first-round presidential election results set the world of Twitter alight with jibes, jokes and cryptic messages recalling coded second world war radio transmissions. "Netherlands-Hungary qualify for return leg," said one tweet playing on the name of the Socialist challenger François Hollande and the origin of Nicolas Sarkozy's father.

Seeking to enforce a 1977 law forbidding disclosure of results, projections or exit polls before the last polling stations closed at 8pm, authorities threatened fines of up to €75,000 (£61,000) for breaches.

But official warnings spurred derision and defiance with a profusion of dummy results and fun-poking messages on the microblogging network, where national frontiers no longer exist. The march of communications technology has made the law look increasingly like the Maginot line of anti-tank defences that France built on its borders in the 1920s, which failed to prevent German tanks invading in 1940.

Some tweets even referred to the coded messages broadcast by the Free French Force over Radio London to resistance fighters in France during the last war.

Only two of the 10 candidates in Sunday's first ballot go through to a runoff on 6 May, in which the conservative Sarkozy is expected to meet the centre-left Hollande, a clear favourite in opinion polls.

Twitter users had a field day concocting new names for candidates, imaginary news headlines of outcomes and officially unverifiable reports of partial results from remote overseas territories where voting took place on Saturday.

"According to observers returning from Syria, Russian tanks left at dawn, due to arrive in Paris at 20h," read one entry, alluding to a possible leftwing victory and closing time at polling stations.

Other aliases for Hollande included "Gouda", the "Flan", a caramel pudding that resembles one of his nicknames, and more transparently, "Rose of Corréze", combining the Socialist colour with Hollande's rural constituency in central France.

For Sarkozy, they included "platform heels", a reference to Sarkozy's penchant for shoes that give him a few extra centimetres in photographs, "Rolex" in a nod to his taste for flashy wristwear, and "Goulash", a Hungarian recipe.

"Daddy's girl" clearly alluded to far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who took over from her father Jean-Marie last year as head of the anti-immigration National Front.

Firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon was branded "hot red pepper" in one message.

Some tweets relayed unofficial partial results or send-ups of result headlines, using candidates' real names, but with their scores blotted out or drowned in a jumble of numbers and characters.

Polling organisations traditionally prepare reliable estimates for their clients, TV and radio stations, in the two hours between polling stations closing in most areas at 6pm local time and the later closures in the big cities, opening up a gap when information can leak.

Among the myriad messages with a wartime ring were ones that mocked Sarkozy for his 2007 post-victory cruise aboard the private yacht of multimillionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré. "Pink wave turns to tsunami, Bolloré yacht in difficulty," said one.