The 2012 French presidential elections: Campaign of Socialist Party candidate François Hollande

The bachelor thesis The 2012 French Presidential Elections: The Campaign of the Socialist Party Candidate François Hollande is an election campaign analysis of the winning candidate and the current French president. The objective of the thesis is to depict a complex image of presidential campaigning in France using the example of the Socialist Party candidate and to explain why his strategy was successful. It presents the contextual analysis of the French environment and its influence on the election process. It examines the way in which the regulation of political communication, consumption of political news in media and typology of voters influence the presidential election. Furthermore, the situation preceding the elections is described as well as compared with the last election year of 2007 and the main candidates of other political parties are characterized. This thesis mainly focuses on François Hollande, his profile, his image and his targeting of individual voters' segments. The circumstances of entering the campaign and the importance of socialist primaries for the official campaign are also mentioned. The campaign analysis itself comprises the choice of communication channels, describes the time horizon of the campaign and characterizes the marketing communication tools adopted by the..