Bienvenue à Twitter, Monsieur le Président

Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to officially announce his re-election bid in a TV appearance tonight, but the French president, who is trailing in the polls, is branching out into social media as well by launching a Twitter account. With only two posts, the president already has over 43,000 followers. (He’s only following the Elysee Palace’s ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to officially announce his re-election bid in a TV appearance tonight, but the French president, who is trailing in the polls, is branching out into social media as well by launching a Twitter account. With only two posts, the president already has over 43,000 followers. (He's only following the Elysee Palace's official feed.) It's pretty g-rated so far, but it's not hard to imagine the possibilities if the notoriously short-tempered president really embraces the medium.

Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to officially announce his re-election bid in a TV appearance tonight, but the French president, who is trailing in the polls, is branching out into social media as well by launching a Twitter account. With only two posts, the president already has over 43,000 followers. (He’s only following the Elysee Palace’s official feed.) It’s pretty g-rated so far, but it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities if the notoriously short-tempered president really embraces the medium.

Sarkozy is a little late to the game. Front-runner Francois Hollande and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen have already been tweeting for a while.

But not everyone is so thrilled to see him. "Angela Merkel" tweets:

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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