It’s election season in France, and posters of the incumbent President Emmanuel Macron gaze down on a picturesque small town with its post office, police station, cinema and kebab shop nestled on the banks of a gently flowing river.
The town isn’t real though. This is all happening in Minecraft, the blocky sandbox game that has captured the imagination of millions since it was first released in 2011.
As part of his drive for re-election, Macron’s campaign has created its own official Minecraft server for potential voters (and curious British journalists) to visit.
Coming from a president who launched his re-election campaign with a call for the creation of “a European metaverse” as a way for France’s digital industry to reduce its dependence on Big Tech’s “Anglo-Saxon or Chinese” players, I was curious to find out.
