Par un terrain qualitatif d’onze entrevues semi-dirigées auprès des stratèges ayant travaillé sur la campagne présidentielle du mouvement naissant de Jean-Luc Mélenchon, la France Insoumise, ce mémoire tente de dresser un portrait des pratiques en matière de marketing politique pour ce candidat. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur les pratiques visant à séduire les jeunes électeurs, afin de pouvoir valider ou réfuter l’hypothèse selon laquelle la FI a volontairement ciblé les 18-24 ans en adaptant les concepts et cheminement du processus marketing à leur comportement politique. Nous pensons que ce choix pourrait peut-être contribuer à expliquer en partie le bon résultat du candidat d’extrême-gauche, qui était, avant cela, perçu comme étant en marge du jeu électoral. Loin d’émettre un jugement moral sur ces pratiques qui sont employées quasi-systématiquement pour la plupart des partis occidentaux, les résultats révèlent plusieurs démarches de ciblage efficace et une nette professionnalisation de la campagne dans un pays culturellement sensible à la question du marketing ou du traitement des données personnelles. / Through a qualitative survey consisting of eleven semi-structured interviews with strategists who worked on French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s incipient movement, the France Insoumise, this dissertation aims to further the understanding of the political marketing practices used throughout his campaign. We focus on the practices devised to attract young voters so as to validate or refute the hypothesis that the FI purposely targeted the 18-24 years old age group, through the use of marketing inspired concepts and strategies so as to influence their political behavior. We posit that this strategy partly explains the good results of the far-left candidate who before stood on the fringes of the political ecosystem. Far from passing a moral judgement on the aforementioned use of marketing practices, which have been used in an almost systematic manner as of late in western parties; the studies’ results show the effectiveness certain targeting tactics. They also show a clear professionalization of the political marketing field in a country where the use of marketing and personal data is still a sensitive topic.

The rise of populism is one of the most significant political phenomena of the last decade. Although populism has been studied from various perspectives, especially in recent years, there is still number of unresolved issues related to the phenomenon. One of them is a question of the relation between right-wing and left-wing populist policies. In this context, the thesis deals with the case of the 2017 French presidential election. In this vote, both right- wing populist Marine Le Pen and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved extraordinary political success. The thesis examines policy content of the selected thematic areas that the candidates were focusing on during the election campaign. It specifically examines electoral programs and media statements of the candidates as the sources of their policies. The thesis provides an analysis of the policy content of individual candidates, as well as a comparison of the policies in the selected thematic areas. Its main output is a description of the common and different features of the pre-election promises of the two selected populist politicians.