LA COMMUNICATION D'INFLUENCE A LA FRANCAISE

In France 'Lobbying' is a catch-all term that is applied across the board to private interests, corporate interests, NGOs interests and Member States' interests. In addition, the French have come up with the term COMMUNICATION D'INFLUENCE (Influence Communication).

Influence communication designates a set of processes aiming to arouse, bring about, legitimate or prevent public decisions with the object of promoting or defending the commercial or ideological interests of an organization by using as prime action lever the influence of public opinion.

Influence communication is distinct from lobbying in two ways :

• while the target of lobbying is always the political decision-maker, influence communication can be accomplished on behalf of political decision makers in order to create in public opinion a climate that is favourable to certain decisions;
• when it seeks to influence political decision makers, influence communication adopts contrary to lobbying an indirect approach that consists in working on public opinion, considering that the latter weighs heavily on political choices.

Influence communication is essentially practiced by specialized agencies, on behalf of public or private organizations . In France influence communication services are proposed by two types of agencies:

• Pluridisciplinary communication agencies that offer among others 'public affairs' or 'influence communication' services;
• Specialized agencies exclusively dedicated to influence communication.

We argue that Public Policy Advocacy is a more appropriate term since it embraces Advocacy, Lobbying, Campaigning and Public Opinion.