French President Emmanuel Macron Has Started A 'Minecraft' Server As Part Of His Presidential Campaign

The campaign of French President Emmanuel Macron, who is running for re-election this April, announced the creation of a Minecraft server yesterday, much to the surprise of many.

🔨 34.76.238.147 🧱

— Emmanuel Macron avec vous (@avecvous) March 29, 2022

Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign has launched an official Minecraft server (via @Julio974) pic.twitter.com/Agku24gdB1

— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) March 29, 2022

Users who entered the game's server found a series of campaign advertisements and a Minecraft version of an idealized France. Macron’s campaign posted a video promoting the server to its official account, as Minecrafters in France and around the globe explored the strange world and reported their results back on social media networks like Twitter.

🧱 avec vous sur Minecraft : https://t.co/ZAED1dxxr8 pic.twitter.com/UNdMo0EsY2

— Emmanuel Macron avec vous (@avecvous) March 29, 2022

"surely French president and election candidate Emmanuel Macron's Minecraft 1.18.1 server built specifically to promote his re-election won't contain any Among us crewma-" https://t.co/n5nq3fGcTN pic.twitter.com/btzbM81ldS

— yahiamice. (@Yahiamice) March 29, 2022

French Minecrafters shared their favorite finds (or “trouvailles” in French) on the server and made witty comments about how it looked. In particular, the black roofs of many houses (which are traditional to the French region of Brittany) drew attention, as did the absence of Corsica in a map of France featured on the server. Others encountered "villagers" in the server, such as "Jean," who talked about how Macron's policies helped him in the face of high gas prices.

Petit Best-Of de mes trouvailles pic.twitter.com/lwibocRJvw

— Kiknac 🇨🇵 (@kiknac2) March 29, 2022

bon par contre on est en bretagne avec toutes les toitures noires là ? 😂 pic.twitter.com/JiaXGISb1R

— Defend Intelligence (@DFintelligence) March 29, 2022

LMFAOOOOOOO EMMANUEL MACRON’S CAMPAIGN MADE A MINECRAFT SERVER I CAN’T EVEN pic.twitter.com/EqaOLvbuCy

— Aracas Dracœpie (🇪🇺💙💛) (@AracasDragon) March 29, 2022

The server offered limited interactivity to visitors. As @AdrienMemel posted. “So the Minecraft server of the Macronists is a place where you don’t choose your skin, you don’t choose your name, you can’t talk, and there is just propaganda everywhere. Overall, you can’t say that it badly represents Macron’s vision of France” (translated).

Donc le serveur Minecraft des macronistes c'est un endroit où :
- Tu choisis pas ton skin
- Tu choisis pas ton pseudo
- Tu peux pas parler
- Y a juste de la propagande partout

On peut pas dire que ça résume mal la vision de la France de Macron en tout cas https://t.co/FHnzbMfved

— Adrien Memel (@AdrienMemel) March 29, 2022

Some shared enthusiastically what they hoped to do in the Macron Minecraft server.

The gendarmes are knocking at my door for griefing in the Macron Minecraft server https://t.co/YvcvTSI0f1

— Chairman of Spring Xi Jinping (@Real_Xi_Jinping) March 29, 2022

what if I put my Minecraft bed next to yours…

on the Emmanuel Macron Minecraft Server https://t.co/Mxs74S0AfT

— Árkadag (@ArkadagEffendi) March 29, 2022

Some French commentators looked into the developer view of the server and found out that it is hosted by Google in Belgium, not in France, leading to a lot of complaining.

Par contre bravo le serveur hébergé chez Google ! Pas très français tout ça pic.twitter.com/ErHq5eWdqc

— Rem’ (@remi_jcqs) March 29, 2022

Emmanuel Macron is currently in the middle of a heated election campaign. The first round of the French presidential election will be on April 10th, and the two candidates who get the most votes in that round will advance to a second round on April 24th. The center-right Macron’s rivals for the presidency include Jean-Luc Melenchon on the left (who some compare to Bernie Sanders in the United States), Valérie Pécresse and Marine Le Pen on the right, and the controversial Éric Zemmour, a nationalist and provocateur on the far-right (who's been compared to politicians like Donald Trump). While the outcome of the election is hard to predict in advance, most polling in France seems to suggest that Macron is a strong favorite. The majority of French commentators predict that the second round will feature Macron and one of the rightwing candidates — perhaps Marine Le Pen, who he ran against in 2017’s second round.

The election comes at a crucial moment for France, with issues like Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, the future of the European Union, the Corsican independence movement and France’s relationship with former colonies such as Algeria thrown into the spotlight.

Macron’s Minecraft server is purportedly a gambit to help the President build support among young voters, who are increasingly disengaged from French political life. But whether they will be engaged by the Macron Minecraft server or respond to it the way Americans did with Hillary Clinton's infamous Pokémon Go To The Polls remark remains to be seen.