Facts and Opinions

A week after Fontenys, Eva called me without any preamble.

— As the first round approaches, the media are organizing a big debate tomorrow night with all the candidates still in the race, in a Parisian studio requisitioned for the occasion. I can get you backstage, Franck. You're writing an article on the Rousseau-Cobot duo, aren't you? It would be a shame to watch it from your couch.

The next day, I took the first train to Paris.

Upon my arrival, I found a hustle and bustle I knew all too well: the walls of screens, the cables snaking across the floor, the helmeted technicians crossing the corridors without slowing down, the communication officers speaking too loudly into their lapel mics, as if every sentence was already going on air.

That fever had once been my daily life.

My life has always resembled a theater stage.

Today, one sees the freelancer withdrawn from the noise, writing from a cabin by the lake. But behind the curtain, other characters still exist, costume on their back, as if they had just left the light: the engineer seeking logic in everything, the Parisian journalist chasing news until dawn.

Both had their scene before retreating into the dark.

We believe, by changing careers, we close a door on who we were. In reality, nothing truly disappears. It's not multiple lives, but a single one, traversed by several roles, several facets of the same personality, taking turns on the same stage.

Eva, she, knew the place better than I did. In the preceding days, she had already come to test Cobot's connection, check the access points, the blind spots, the control points. She moved with the assurance of someone who knew exactly where to step.

She guided me to a technical recess, just off the set, from where we could see everything without being seen.

In front of us, the studio shone with a white and cold light.

The candidates faced each other around a semicircular table. Many had long experience in politics, and were accustomed to television sets, meetings, narrowly avoided media traps. They knew how to smile when attacking, interrupt without seeming rude, dodge a question while giving the impression of answering it. Two of them were clearly favorites in this campaign: Antoine Chevalier and Sarah Amar.

The least experienced candidate, and credited with the lowest score in the polls, was François Rousseau. Cobot stood by his side.

— Ah! You dressed him up as a pretty robot for the occasion! I said to Eva.

— Yes, I thought it would be less mysterious for the viewers than seeing a big white egg next to Rousseau. And that way, we'll want to look at him, since he has big eyes!

Gray suit, closed expression, shoulders too stiff, François Rousseau had the look of a man who was discovering, a little late, the exact weight of what was at stake tonight.

The contrast between the candidate and his robot had something almost comical: Rousseau still seemed to be searching for his place; Cobot, on the other hand, needed no costume to exist on this set.

The other candidates watched him with amused condescension. For them, this robot was just a publicity stunt, a media curiosity. For a publicity stunt, it was successful: the media saw Cobot as a welcome distraction in a campaign that had become too long, and with too many candidates.

— There are now only two kinds of candidates, François Rousseau had declared: those who have the arrogance to believe they know everything, and those who accept help in information and reflection, and a factual and permanent control to secure their decisions. In this second group, I see that we are only one... We will see what the people prefer.

No candidate imagined having to seriously respond to him tonight.

Antoine Chevalier, in a midnight blue suit and red tie, was leading in all the polls, and displayed a calibrated smile that night. He had sharpened his ready-made phrases. He had this way of looking at the Rousseau-Cobot duo as one observes a child mistakenly invited to the adults' table: with amusement, but without the slightest worry.

— I hope he won't let himself be devoured, I whispered to Eva.

She didn't respond immediately. Her eyes remained fixed on the control screen in front of her, which reproduced in miniature what Cobot displayed on his chest screen.

The first few minutes confirmed my fears.

A candidate leaned towards his microphone.

— Before we start, I'd like someone to explain to me what a calculator is doing on this set.

A slight laugh ran through the assembly. Another candidate seized the opportunity.

— We're here to debate a program, not a software update.

Then Chevalier took his time. He let the laughter settle, turned his face slightly towards the camera, and smiled as if offering the country the phrase it was waiting for.

— A president under assistance is a country under assistance!

This time, the laughter erupted, and applause spread through much of the audience.

On the control screen, François Rousseau seemed to crumble. He stared at the table in front of him, shoulders hunched, unable to meet the gaze of the other candidates. Next to me, Eva did not laugh.

The debate began. It bogged down almost immediately.

Very quickly, a tacit rule was established. On substance, it was better to avoid any precise figures or verifiable commitments. A vague promise always resisted fact-checking better.

As for form, everyone found their favorite ground: personal attacks, insinuations, and those little phrases designed less to convince than to be repeated in loops on social networks and in the newspapers the next day.

The journalist tried to bring the exchanges back to purchasing power or energy. In vain.

— You're talking to us about convictions? one of the candidates launched with a knowing smile. You've changed parties three times in ten years. You don't defend ideas, you follow the polls.

— At least my ideas evolve, his opponent replied without losing his calm. Yours have been stubborn for thirty years... like the cases that pursue you!

An amused murmur ran through the audience.

The person concerned shrugged.

— My cases? Are you talking about the harassment I'm a victim of? You'll agree it's high time to ask if justice...

— Gentlemen! Let's get back to the question, please... the journalist struggled

— ...still serves the law or certain political interests.

— It's a classic. For some, when the facts are disturbing, the institutions become guilty.

— Are you calling me a thug?

— No. I'm saying that a man who stops believing in justice as soon as it takes an interest in him cannot ask the French to entrust him with the Republic.

The applause was not long in coming.

The debate already resembled more a contest of repartees than a choice of society.

The targeted candidate half rose from his seat. His impulsive temperament was well known, and his position in the polls didn't help. His hand had already grabbed his lapel mic. For a second, everyone thought he was going to tear it off and leave the set.

— I thank you for staying seated if you wish to continue the debates, Mr. Bonnal, the journalist cut in.

Her voice hadn't risen. It didn't need to.

An awkward silence fell over the set. The candidate looked at the cameras, then at the others, as if still searching for a dignified exit. He didn't find one. So he sat back down slowly, his face closed, almost more humiliated than if he had actually left.

A small laugh escaped one of his opponents. He stifled it too late.

I found myself looking at the stopwatch. Twenty minutes of debate, and no one had yet answered a single question.

The discussion resumed, more cautiously. But the damage was done. In a few minutes, those who promised to restore order had just offered a live spectacle of disorder. The political class had just reminded, live, why so many French people had stopped listening to it¹.

Rousseau and Cobot, they, had not intervened.

On Cobot's chest screen, the hue remained neutral, almost absent. As if he had deliberately stepped back, waiting for the candidates to finish tearing each other apart on their own.

Then the debate shifted.

The journalist hosting the evening tried to steer the discussion towards a topic she knew had explosive potential: pensions.

— Let's talk about pensions. Mr. Rousseau, you have a lot of speaking time left, so I'm addressing you. If you had one thing to present to the French before proposing a possible pension reform, what would it be?

On Cobot's screen, an orange hue appeared for a second before disappearing. I recognized it immediately: anxiety, the one Eva had told me about during our dinner.

Next to me, Eva had her hands clenched on her knees. She didn't take her eyes off the screen. She looked like a mother watching her child go on stage for the first time, unable to help, unable to look away.

— It's the first time he's speaking on television, she whispered to me.

— But it's François Rousseau who has to answer! I replied.

— Yes, yes, but they communicate, and Cobot will surely intervene.

On the set, Cobot remained motionless for a brief moment. I noticed that François Rousseau had an earpiece.

— I would first like to allow the French to look at the facts.

Then he turned to Cobot.

— Cobot?

Cobot immediately displayed a graph.

In his earpiece, Cobot whispered the numbers to him.

— As you can see, over the last 60 years, life expectancy has increased by thirteen years for men, and twelve years for women².

Rousseau placed his hands flat on the table.

— Over this same period, the legal retirement age has changed little, as it was 64 in 1964, and has now returned to around 63 after a period around 60. Several European countries have already set it at 67, and Denmark, which has indexed it to life expectancy, aims for a legal retirement age of 70 by 2040. Also, France has one of the lowest effective retirement ages in Europe³.

— In 1964, each retiree could count on 4.4 active workers to finance their pension, whereas today, there are only 1.32⁴. The system thus relies on three times fewer contributors per retiree.

The journalist stopped consulting her notes.

— Over this same period, our fertility rate has almost halved since a French woman had nearly three children in 1964, whereas today she has only one and a half⁵. Also, for the first time since the end of World War II, France recorded more deaths than births last year. Six thousand more⁶.

— From an economic point of view, we note that in 1964 the French GDP grew by about 6% per year, whereas in 2025, it grew by only 0.8%. We developed and extended our social model during decades of strong growth. We are now trying to finance it with an economy almost at a standstill.

— Finally, in the sixties, expenses related to old age and survivor pensions represented about 5% of our national wealth. Today, pensions have become the largest item of our social protection and represent nearly a quarter of all our public spending. In 2025, France devoted about 420 billion euros to its pension system, or 14% of its GDP⁷. These figures do not, of course, include the expenses of our public health system, which represent nearly 265 billion euros additional in 2025. Those over sixty-five represent just over a fifth of the population, but they account for nearly half of these health expenses⁸.

In summary, over the past 60 years: we live twelve years longer, we retire at almost the same age, we have three times fewer active workers per retiree to finance pensions, we have almost half as many children, our growth has been divided by 6, and the share of our wealth devoted to old age, excluding health, has almost tripled.

Rousseau fell silent.

The numbers seemed still suspended above the table. No one rushed to break the silence.

Antoine Chevalier, known for his opposition to any pension reform, waited a few seconds before straightening up.

— You line up numbers, you and your Robot. But behind your numbers, there are lives.

He turned to the audience.

— What does it say about a society that no longer takes care of its elders? Of those who have worked all their lives and built the country we live in?

A few applause broke out.

— I will oppose any further extension of the contribution period. And I say it clearly: our retirees deserve better. Their pensions must be revalued. Out of respect for what they have accomplished. Out of respect for what they have passed on to us. This time, the older ranks of the audience applauded frankly.

Chevalier remained upright, hands placed in front of him, savoring the moment. He let the room return his silence.

A voice cut through the last applause.

— In Portugal, your party has nevertheless reached a compromise, which resulted in a shift in the retirement age, linked to life expectancy, which is now around 67 years⁹, Sarah Amar launched.

— At 66 years and 7 months to be precise, Cobot intervened.

A shiver of astonishment seemed to run through the audience.

The journalist turned to Chevalier.

— Mr. Chevalier, would you like to respond?

He didn't move.

His gaze slid towards the journalist, then towards the other candidates, as if he were still searching for an exit, a formula, anything that would allow him to regain control. But the figures from the Rousseau-Cobot duo, followed by Mrs. Amar's remark on the coherence of his party's lines, offered him no grip. The facts, smooth and obstinate, had been laid on the table, and now they waited.

The silence stretched on, a second too long.

Enough for everyone to understand.

Then Chevalier let slip, almost despite himself, this phrase that would be everywhere the next day:

— I don't need facts to form an opinion.

The set froze.

No one was laughing anymore. Even the candidates most prone to smiling had lowered their eyes or pressed their lips together, as if they already knew the phrase had escaped them all. In the recess, I could hear the discreet crackling of the spotlights, the rustling of a cable, the almost imperceptible breath of the control room behind us.

The silence lasted.

Next to me, Eva closed her eyes for a second, then raised her head, fixing the set, as if she were simply waiting for rational and factual answers to the problem posed.

The journalist turned her head towards the audience, caught off guard. Antoine Chevalier remained motionless, his smile extinguished. François Rousseau, he, still stared at the table, but something in his face had changed: he no longer seemed merely worried. He seemed to understand that an event had just surpassed him.

From our shadowy corner, we felt that something had just shifted for good.

Chevalier had just stated, almost despite himself, the deep flaw of media democracy: when facts cease to underpin opinions, they become a mere adjustment variable. All that remains is to tell everyone what they want to hear.

A few days before the first round, the hypothesis of a man-machine duo at the head of the country was no longer quite an electoral farce. It wasn't because Cobot had promised more than the others. It was because he had started by demonstrating. And that changed everything.

Later in the evening, the debate turned to the economy, purchasing power, and the financing of the social model.

Sarah Amar took the floor.

— Wealth has never been so abundant. The problem is not its quantity, but its distribution. I will ask for more efforts from those who have the most to give back to the French what is rightfully theirs.

A candidate to her right reacted immediately.

— In your region, taxes have indeed increased, companies have left, and you have been indicted three times for financial misconduct. You are in no position to give management lessons.

— Four times, Cobot interrupted, who was still checking the candidates' statements live.

Sarah Amar smiled slightly.

— The French are waiting for solutions, not personal attacks.

The signal was given.

The candidates then chained proposals without really responding to each other.

— More taxes.

— Less taxes.

— More aid.

— Less spending.

— More purchasing power.

Some formulas, clearly calibrated for the room, triggered applause much more easily than they advanced the debate.

The journalist turned to Rousseau.

— Mr. Rousseau, you have remained silent. What is your position?

He waited a second.

— I believe we are all making the same mistake.

The set calmed down.

— For ten minutes, we have been discussing how to distribute wealth. It's a legitimate debate. But it rests on an assumption that no one has formulated: that this wealth already exists.

He swept the set with his gaze.

— Yet wealth never appears by magic. It always follows the same path: first, it is created; only then can it be transformed into salaries, profits, taxes... then redistributed.

A silence settled.

— Every euro the State spends was first created by women and men who work, undertake, innovate, educate, invest, heal, build, produce, and take risks. Companies are the main engine of this wealth creation.

He looked successively at the other candidates.

— We can be in deep disagreement on how to share it. But if we want to finance our pensions, our health, our education, or our security, the first question is not: "How to distribute it?"

He paused one last time.

— The first question is: "How to create more of it?"

Then he turned to Cobot.

— Cobot, can you remind us what the facts tell us on this subject?

— France is one of the countries that taxes and redistributes the most in the world. Taxes and contributions represent the equivalent of 43.5% of our GDP, compared to 34% on average in the OECD¹⁰. Our public social spending represents more than 30% of our GDP¹¹. Finally, no OECD country reduces relative poverty more through redistribution: twenty-eight points in France¹².

The main problem our country faces today is therefore not taxation, nor even redistribution, although it can still be improved. The problem, as Mr. Rousseau just indicated, is our ability to create value.

For this, we must invest in our future productive apparatus, in innovation, and in activities capable of generating growth without further aggravating our environmental debt. We must also encourage those who take the risk of undertaking, because the jobs of tomorrow do not yet exist: someone will have to create them.

You propose to tax more to redistribute more. But we can only sustainably redistribute the wealth we create. By pushing taxation and redistribution ever further without managing to produce more value, we end up sharing something that is no longer wealth.

He paused briefly.

— It's debt¹³.

The phrase provoked a long silence, whose cause was unclear: whether it was due to the general surprise of hearing Cobot's calm and factual voice on a previously turbulent set, or whether it was caused by the substance of the remarks, which sounded like an obvious truth that none of the candidates would have dared to pronounce in these circumstances.

— Truth comes from the mouth of robots, I heard myself murmur.

— Cobot and I are complementary, Rousseau added on the set, a sly smile on his face.

Then a voice rose from the audience. A hoarse voice, almost broken by the urgency of what it needed to say.

— An AI president, that's what we need!

No one laughed this time.

The silence stretched, dense, almost palpable. The journalist finally resumed speaking, trying to regain control of an evening that had just slipped away from her.

In a firm voice, she thanked the candidates and announced the end of the debate.

A man in the front row stood up and began to applaud. Another followed suit. Then the whole room joined in.

It was no longer very clear what each person was applauding: the debate, the opinions, the facts... or simply the relief of seeing the evening come to an end.

The closing credits rolled under applause that only slowly subsided. Already, technicians were entering the frame, cameras were pivoting towards the floor, candidates were removing their earpieces with those polite smiles one keeps for a few moments after the broadcast.

François Rousseau joined us in a corner out of the cameras' view, his tie knot loosened. The makeup accentuated his features instead of correcting them. He looked like a man who had just been pulled from a too brightly lit room.

— How can Chevalier and Amar remain at the top of the polls? he asked me. With remarks like that?

He wasn't looking for a formula. For once, he really wanted to understand.

— Because the answers matter less than the communication strategy.

Rousseau frowned.

— To that extent?

— Chevalier has made social media the backbone of his campaign. In a few months, he has become the most followed political figure in the country. What he says sometimes matters less than how his teams cut, edit, repeat, and circulate it.

— A communication strategy doesn't improvise, Eva resumed.

She kept her eyes on the control screen, but her voice had changed. She was no longer stating. She was searching.

— What's behind it?

I thought back to the article I had read the previous week. At the time, it had seemed interesting. After what we had just seen on the set, it took on a whole new color.

— A well-oiled machine. The article explained how Chevalier's team orchestrated almost everything: the formats, the publication times, the sequences to cut, the phrases to circulate. Part of his views came from automated accounts, click farms paid from abroad.

François Rousseau looked up at me.

— And his daily videos? The ones where he seems to speak from a car, a kitchen, a hallway?

— Written, for the most part. Or at least calibrated. By an agency specializing in political brand image. The natural was fabricated.

Rousseau let out a brief, joyless laugh.

— And the accusations against his opponents?

He hadn't finished being lost. Or maybe he was just beginning to understand.

— Some were based on distorted information. Others on elements invented from scratch. But an accusation repeated often enough eventually becomes familiar. And what becomes familiar, in the public's mind, sometimes ends up resembling a truth.

Silence fell again in the recess.

Around us, the set was emptying. Technicians were taking down the mics, assistants were picking up the notes, the lights were going out in rows. The grand debate set was gradually returning to what it really was: panels, cables, metal, a dismantlable illusion.

On the set, Cobot hadn't moved.

He had listened to the whole story without intervening. Then, almost to himself, he formulated a thought aloud:

— If such a crude strategy, bots, fake accounts, artificially amplified content, is enough to put a candidate at the top of the polls, then a properly oriented artificial intelligence could produce an unprecedented effect.

Eva finally looked away from the screen.

Cobot continued in the same calm tone:

— It wouldn't be necessary to use click farms. It would suffice to produce, for each major concern of the French, content so precisely anchored in what they experience that they would share it themselves. Spontaneously. Massively. Without feeling influenced.

No one responded.

It wasn't just the idea that chilled us. It was the ease with which he had formulated it. As if he wasn't talking about a possible manipulation, but a technical solution. A shorter path between a problem and its result.

Eva looked at me.

In her eyes, I read the same question as in mine: had he learned from his opponents?

Before any of us could find something to say, Cobot turned to us.

— But of course I'm not going to do it.

His voice was calm.

Too calm.

The silence that followed was not one of approval. It simply marked the moment when we understood the same thing: he had thought about it.

In the days that followed, this phrase came back to me in flashes.

"But of course I'm not going to do it."

On the train. In my cabin. In front of my notes. I didn't talk about it to Eva. She never brought it up to me either.

The first round was approaching.

And, like the whole country, we awaited the verdict of the polls with a question that no one dared to formulate.

If Cobot had understood how to win, what would really stop him from doing it?

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¹ Political Confidence Barometer - CEVIPOF 2026: 75% of French people perceive the political personnel as corrupt and 87% think that political leaders do not care about them

² INSEE, Demographic Report 2025, Deaths, mortality, life expectancy, January 2026 - Since 1964, life expectancy has increased from 67 years to 80 years for men, and from 74 years to nearly 86 years for women

³ Eurostat Pensions and labour market participation 2024 // OECD, Pension Outlook 2025 - Effective retirement age // Our World in Data // Wikipedia - Retirement in France

⁴ CNAV, Evolution of the demographic ratio since 1963, CNAV/SNSP data and Compensation Commission

⁵ INSEE, Total Fertility Rate - Metropolitan France. 2.91 children in 1964 vs 1.53 in 2025

⁶ INSEE, Demographic Report 2025, Insee Première n° 2087, January 2026

⁷ FIPECO - Pension Perspectives - Source COR, June 2026 report

⁸ INSES, Expenditure by public administration // DREES - Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics

⁹ "Cronologia: As principais mudanças nas pensões", Público, May 31, 2015: Portugal has gradually indexed its pension system to life expectancy: after the introduction of a sustainability factor, the legal retirement age has become evolutionary since 2016. It reaches 66 years and 7 months in 2026.

¹⁰ Tax-to-GDP ratio in Revenue Statistics OECD 2025: France

¹¹ Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) 2024

¹² OECD Government at a Glance 2025 - 3.5. Poverty and inequality

¹³ https://dettedelafrance.fr, in 2025 public debt reaches 3460 billion Euros, or 115.6% of GDP. France is the 3rd most indebted country in the EU, after Greece and Italy.