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Agence France-Presse

Emmanuel Macron is a centrist pro-European whose sensational political career, unorthodox marriage and promises to modernise France have made him the overwhelming favourite for the presidency, after he advanced on Sunday to the second round of voting.
If he wins on May 7, the 39-year-old former banker who married his high school drama teacher would be the youngest French leader in modern history, upending tradition that has usually seen voters favour experience in their powerful presidents.
Running in his first ever election, Macron was projected to win about 24 per cent in the first round of the presidential poll on Sunday, guaranteeing him a place in the second round against far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen.
“We’re turning a page in French political history,” a jubilant Macron said after the estimates were released.
Historic French election result: Le Pen and Macron advance
Latest opinion polls out Sunday found that Macron would win about two-thirds of the vote if the run-off was held today.



His projected first round victory is a vindication of his decision to quit the government of unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande in August to concentrate on building up his own centrist political movement, En Marche (“On the Move”).
“We can’t respond with the same men and the same ideas,” Macron said as he launched his presidential bid in November at a jobs training centre in a gritty Parisian suburb.
Since then, he has rarely been out of the headlines, building up his movement to more than 250,000 members and confounding critics who said he would only appeal to a narrow band of young, urban professionals.
“In your name, I will be... the voice of hope for our country and for Europe,” he told cheering supporters Sunday. “I want to be the president of the patriots against the threat of nationalists.”
With frustration at France’s political class running high, Macron has tapped into a desire for wholesale change that also propelled far-right candidate Le Pen into the second round.
“I’m here because he’s young, he’s dynamic. It’s like a breath of fresh air,” 23-year-old shop worker Marine Gonidou said at a rally in Brittany in January.
Although positioned as an outsider, the brilliant student followed a well-worn path through elite French universities including ENA, which has groomed many French leaders.
After going into investment banking, where he earned several million euros at Rothschild, Macron became an economic adviser to Hollande in 2012 and then economy minister two years later.
Despite the efforts of his opponents, “he seems to have escaped his association with the government,” said Dominique Reynie, head of the Foundation for Political Innovation think-tank in Paris.
Throughout the campaign he insisted that France was “contrarian” - ready to elect a pro-EU, pro-globalisation liberal at a time when rightwing nationalists are making gains across the world.
As well as wanting to improve the business environment, Macron stresses the need to boost education in deprived areas and has spoken out against stigmatising Muslims with France’s strict rules on secularism.
His championing of tech firms and the “Uber-isation” of the economy, in which people increasingly work as independents rather than as employees, has helped burnish his image as a moderniser.
“I want us to be able to start a business more easily, to innovate more easily” is one of his mantras, explained in depth in his pre-election book “Revolution”.
Opponents still dismiss him as deliberately vague, with Le Pen landing a blow during a televised debate in March when she attacked him for waffling.
“Mr Macron you have an amazing talent, you’ve spoken for seven minutes and I’m unable to resume your thinking. You’ve said nothing!” she said.
In politics as well as his personal life, Macron has also broken traditions.
The theatre lover from a middle-class family in northeast France fell in love with his secondary school drama teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, in a story that captivated the French media.
Trogneux, a mother of three children 25 years older than him, went on to divorce her husband and marry the young prodigy in 2007.
“At the age of 17, Emmanuel said to me: ‘Whatever you do, I will marry you!’,” Trogneux told Paris Match magazine last April.
Some have found the relationship difficult to believe despite numerous appearances together in glossy magazines, forcing Macron to repeatedly laugh off rumours he is gay.
While at ease among ordinary voters and charismatic, Macron has been accused of being condescending in the past, whether referring to “illiterate” abattoir workers, “alcoholic” laid-off workers or the “poor people” who travel on buses.
In an infamous exchange, when confronted by a protester in a T-shirt in May last year, he lost his cool, saying: “The best way to buy yourself a suit is to work.”


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Emmanuel Macron

The prodigy: Emmanuel Macron married his school teacher, made millions as banker, and at 39 is poised to win French presidency

French presidential election candidate for the En Marche ! movement Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the Parc des Expositions in Paris, on April 23, 2017, after the first round of the Presidential election. / AFP PHOTO / Patrick KOVARIK

Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche ! leaves his campaign headquarters in Paris after early results in the first round of the French presidential election showed him advancing to the runoff. Photo: Reuters

He’s pro-immigration, pro-globalism and pro-EU. How did France’s Macron hold back populist tide?

French presidential election candidate for the En Marche ! movement Emmanuel Macron meets some of his supporters at La Rotonde restaurant in Paris, late Sunday, after winning the first round of the French Presidential vote. Photo: AFP

Supporters of Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, or Onwards !, and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, celebrate after partial results in the first round of 2017 French presidential election, at the Parc des Expositions hall in Paris, France April 23, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

(170423) -- HENIN-BEAUMONT (FRANCE), April 23, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Marine Le Pen (C), far-right National Front (FN) party presidential candidate, greets her supporters at a rally after the first round of French presidential election in Henin-Beaumont, France on April 23, 2017. Centrist candidate and former minister of economy Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen on Sunday came out on top in the first round of the French presidential election, according to projections by polling agencies and official partial results. The two leading candidates are set to face off in the runoff on May 7. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

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