Lula's victory in the Brazilian presidential election on Sunday, October 25, has found emulators in France. La France Insoumise drew inspiration from the social-media campaign waged by the Workers' Party candidate before he won, to general surprise.
Beyond the outgoing president's platform, firmly rooted on the left, it is this digital mobilization that the Insoumis movement is watching. A left-wing candidate wins in another country, and the question of"how"asserts itself in the ranks of the Melenchonist campaign.
The method was theorized by a man in his forties in a book published in November 2023, Cultural Janonism (Janonismo cultural). It was in the final weeks of the campaign that these principles were applied on a very large scale.
Its pillar is the massive development of a WhatsApp channel intended to disseminate information and to vigorously encourage activists, notably through small campaign challenges, among other directives.
It is the highly aggressive, even military, aspect of this text that is sparking debate on social media. At the heart of what the document presents as a war, the instruction is to try to bring engagement with the adversary down to zero and to reduce its reach to nothing.
A point that the Insoumis are also taking up, by applying Andre Janones's instructions. Some recommendations in the little handbook are already the preserve of La France Insoumise elected officials and activists, such as rendering the far right invisible on social media.
Two limitations may nonetheless hinder the application of Janonism in France that LFI wants. This doctrine was laid down in Brazil, a country with its own specificities in information and social media.
"We did not know the mini-handbook,"one of the linchpins of the Melenchonist campaign said in her defense. According to her, the"momentary suspension of critical consciousness"advocated in this text is not an Insoumis precept.