Fig 12. Reconfiguration of political communities at the time of the televised “Le Grand Débat” on April 4th, 2017.

Philippe Poutou created a buzz during this confrontation when he openly condemned the trickery and corruption of candidates Fillon and Le Pen, by criticizing their anti-system attitudes: “When we are summoned by the police, we have no working-class immunity, we go to the police station.” His remarks were relayed by most of the media, and received more than 1 million online consultations on YouTube. Following this intervention his Twitter community, which until that time had been almost inexistent, and often overlapped with that of Mélenchon, developed considerably (to more than 13,000 accounts) over a short period of time.