Angela Merkel, figure d’autorité supra- et transnationale ?

Représentations médiatiques, françaises et allemandes, lors de la "crise des réfugiés"

Resumo

The decision of German chancellor Angela Merkel to open her country’s doors to Syrian refugees in autumn 2015 attracted a great deal of attention from the German and the French media. This paper explores her symbolic rise in power on this historic occasion by examining the ways in which the chancellor was represented as a — national and supranational — leader by the media. To this end, this semio- discursive analysis takes the form of a binational comparative study of the principal French and German weekly news magazines: Le Point, L’Express and L’Obs in France, and der Spiegel, Stern and Focus in Germany. This paper demonstrates how the establishment of Merkel as a leader during this crisis grew out of the imbrication of three — individual, national and supranational — narrative levels in the media productions that addressed her decision. The binational comparison applied to each of these three levels sheds light on the fanciful processes behind the establishment of Angela Merkel as a figure of authority, as well as the national variations that marked this shared representation.