In 1980s-90s France, how did brilliant communicants create a new public relations strategy that helped politicians to take over the Elysée and to stay in power? Television was already king of all medias and could prove to be a formidable springboard as well as a fatal trap for politicians. Mitterrand and Chirac found this out the hard way before they managed, with the help of a few secret strategists, to tame television and turn it in their favour. At the helm of these radical reversals were shadowy advisers known in the United States as "spin doctors".