Figurality as a Dominant Feature in French Mass Media Covering the 2022 French Presidential Race (Based on Articles from <i>“France 24”</i>, <i>“Le Point”</i>, <i>“Linternaute.com”</i>, <i>“Francetvinfo.fr”</i>, <i>“Europe1.fr”</i>, <i>“Le Parisien”</i>)
The paper examines figurality and metaphorization in the language of modern French mass media that covered the French presidential race of April 2022, demonstrating the implementation of persuasive strategies aimed at shaping electors’ consciousness through use of metaphors and other figurative language. The aim of the research is to illustrate the significance of figurative language units such as fixed expressions, phraseological units, picturesque epithets, and exuberant descriptive words in the language of the French political discourse. The author concludes that figurality remains one of the fundamental characteristics of the language of French mass media and represents an integral feature of French political discourse. It is emphasized that through analyzing metaphors and other instances of figurality applied to the contemporary political framework in the language of French newspapers, one can uncover underlying strategies aimed at creating a certain picture of the world, clearly slanted towards a specific desirable end and thus implicitly influencing the readers’ vision and perception of the situation; therefore the significance of such figures of speech cannot be underestimated in the language of modern French political communication. The practical significance of the paper lies in potentially using its materials and conclusions for college-level electives in contrastive lexicology and contrastive phraseology intended for students majoring in French, philology, international journalism, political science, and diplomacy.