President Macron's Communication Strategy on the War in Ukraine

Although it is well known that in times of military crisis strong presidents under presidentialism can concentrate foreign and security policy power in their hands and are often able to communicate war-related events in a way that creates rally-around-the-flag effects, we still know little about presidents operating in semi-presidential systems. This paper focuses especially on how presidents communicate war-related events in order to increase popular support for their foreign and defence policies and strategies, to send important messages to allies in the international context, and especially to the EU institutions and its member states. Against this background, this paper analyses how French President Macron faces the War in Ukraine by analysing his communication on social media platforms. In particular, we compile a dataset of 278 posts on X, 124 posts on both FB and Instagram (for a total of 526 posts) dealing with the Ukraine War over a period of about 2 years (from 24/02/2024 to 18/10/2024). Based on both a quantitative and qualitative content analysis, the paper aims to unveil what are the most recurrent ways of addressing the war in Macron's social communication and whether it is intended to address the French people or international actors and other nation-states as allies.