Les candidats aux élections présidentielles dans les discours de presse française et kazakhe

Resumo

The aim of this article is to analyze and compare the different issues at stake in the construction of the image of a head of state in two presidential regimes with different socio-political contexts—France and Kazakhstan. Although both share similar democratic institutions and political systems, their durations of existence and processes of construction of social discourse are distinct. In order to carry out this comparison, we analyzed the construction of the image of presidential candidates in the press discourse (in 2012 for France and in 2011 for Kazakhstan). The construction of the image of the candidates was analyzed from two angles. Firstly, we focused on the construction of “two bodies”: the political body (the presidential candidate or the representative of a politi- cal function) and the physical body (the physical characteristics, the behaviors and habits, the family and immediate circle, the physical condition and health). Secondly, we looked at the construction of the candidate’s ethos (the image constructed by the candidate himself), as well as the media ethos of the candidates (the image of the candidates as constructed by the media). The comparative analysis is divided into three levels: a comparison of the images of the candidates within the same newspaper, a comparison of the images of the candidates based on two newspapers from the same country, and a comparison of the press discourses from the two countries.