France election: Emmanuel Macron's Minecraft server is a glimpse at politics in the metaverse

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.

But what does an election in the world of Minecraft look like?

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.

Here's what I saw.

Visitors to what some French journalists have already termed the "Macronverse" arrive in a town square with a fountain, a handful of cafes and an enormous billboard with a photo of the man himself advertising a campaign event.

I wasn't alone. The town square was quite busy, with other visitors running, jumping and punching each other (and sometimes also the giant poster of Macron).

Interaction is limited though. There's no way to communicate with other players, other than by jumping, crouching and punching. The same goes for most of the non-player controlled (NPC) residents of the Minecraft town, except for the select few with a name in orange floating above their heads.

When approached, they'll happily tell you about how the number of police has increased, how the government has kept the price of fuel in check, or how they've benefitted