"Mangez des pommes !"

 "Mangez des pommes !" ('eat some apples!') is the most unlikely presidential campaign slogan ever.

From left, Reinette grise du Canada, Reine de reinettes, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and Melrose apples, from our orchard.

The phrase will be forever associated with Jacques Chirac in 1995, even though he never actually said it and even though the official campaign slogan was "La France pour tous". It is widely, and only half jokingly, credited with winning him the presidency.

A local apple producer at Loches market.

The phrase in fact comes from the television political satire Les Guignols de l'Info (the French equivalent of Rubbery Figures in Australia or Spitting Image in Britain). But Chirac was open about the fact that he did indeed love apples, and there were apples pictured on the cover of his manifesto and on his campaign posters. He wasn't alone in loving apples. They are the most popular fruit in France, with French people at the time each eating on average 16 kg of apples per year and France being the third largest producer of apples in Europe.

A local apple producer at Loches market.

In the autumn of 1994 only 15% of voters intended to vote for Chirac. At this point it was widely predicted that the Socialist Jacques Delors would win (although, in the end, he didn't run). Les Guignols had already started the joke that Chirac was mad about apples, and in the winter of 1995 had his puppet say 'mangez des pommes !'. The slogan stuck and from then on his character said it in every episode. Then the public started saying it. You heard it in the street. And by April 1995, 30% of voters were saying they would choose Chirac. Apples turned out to have a sort of universality that worked from the provinces to the banlieues (poor suburbs). It was nature, food, in a word -- France! And voters were amused. Chirac came across as likeable, and his opponents as dullards.

Organic Patte de loup apples from our local organic orchard.

 

The creative marketing apple theme went even further and for the first time a French political campaign offered merch! There were apple key rings and apple t-shirts. This was the first presidential election where there were legal campaign spending restrictions, so campaign managers had to find novel ways of getting their message across. 

Reine de reinettes on the left and Red Delicious on the right, from our orchard.

His official campaign slogan was considered a bit dull by his team quite early on in the run up to the election. A tree was added to the graphic on posters to reference the land and symbolise democracy, and then the apples were introduced for visual contrast. As it happened, apple producers were struggling at the time, and the adoption of the apple as a symbol went down a treat with them. Trucks of apples turned up at every campaign stop, to the alarm of Chirac's security service, who feared the fruit would be used either literally or figuratively as weapons. But Chirac, who was a big man afraid of nothing, laughed it off and skilfully used the apples to his advantage. By the end of the campaign apples were being handed out to supporters. Ultimately these apples even took on an aspect of riches being distributed to all. You might say the strategy bore fruit...