Richard Ferrand: smoker or fraud?

Richard Ferrand, smoker or fraud? That's roughly what was suggested by the photo France Info used to report on the "Richard Ferrand" affair.

As the years go by, images — political ones in particular — increasingly carry messages that the words don't. Much like (not quite, admittedly) Libération's cover during the presidential campaign, the public news site France Info had chosen an image that spoke volumes. It showed the former minister with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, glasses slightly askew, and the flashing lights of a police vehicle in the background. The photo suggested a very different message from the article's headline:

Richard Ferrand keeps his MP's seat in Finistère, despite the Mutuelles de Bretagne affair.

Censorship at France Info?

The former minister was shown with a cigarette in his mouth — because a few hours later, with no explanation, the article changed completely. Not in its words, but very much in its "styling." This time Richard Ferrand appears smiling, well lit, with no cigarette, and behind him journalists and a man with a smiling, benevolent gaze. But why this iconographic change? A purely rhetorical question, of course. I'll leave you the intellectual freedom to interpret this small pictorial alteration… A few more details to help you make up your mind. The article (according to its own mentions) was published on 18/06/2017 at 20:26; the first screenshot shows an update at 21:01, and the second screenshot shows another update during the night of 18/06 to 19/06 at 00:44 — less than 5 hours after going live. Richard Ferrand will therefore have smoked for only a few hours. Let's hope the Evin law won't be invoked to explain this change of photograph — if anyone ever explains it at all! Over to you. And as France Info's slogans put it: Share, Comment…